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THE 



AMERICAN QUESTION 



NATIONAL ASPECT. 

BEING ALSO 

AN INCIDENTAL REPLY TO MR. H. R. HELPER'S "COMPENDIUM OF 
THE IMPENDING CRISIS OF THE SOUTH." 






BY 



ELIAS PEISSNER, 

PROFESSOR IN UNION COLLEGE. 




NEW YORK: 
H. H. LLOYD & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

25 HOWARD STREET. 

1861. 



£^° 



% 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SC1, by 

ELIAS PEIS3NEE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of New York. 



Davies & E 

STEEEOTYPEES AND ELECTROTTPER8, 

118 Niuaav Str* '. .v. r. 



PREFACE 



Slavery, irrespective of its being right or wrong, is a historical 
fact, and depends as such, in its rise, growth, and decay, on the 
various circumstances of time and place Avhich surround it, and 
have surrounded it, in different nations and periods. The soil, 
the climate, the geological and geographical congeniality with the 
most thickly settled countries of Europe, the large immigration 
consequent thei-eupon, the character of the settlers, — in short, land 
and people, production and population, made emancipation easier in 
our Northern States than in most of the Southern. 

Therefore, we must censure those who wantonly throw all blame 
and all curses on the slaveholder as such ; but we must also con- 
demn the Slave-Politician who, on the natural circumstances unfavor- 
able to speedy emancipation in the South, raised a play-ground for 
his political ambition and cast new obstacles in the way of freedom. 

The imprudent abolitionist and the selfish politician exert a like 
influence upon the nation, though it be of different intensity. They 
rouse enmity and hatred between two sections of the same country ; 
they, intentionally or unawares, render the Union less desirable and 
less honorable ; they create fears, and threats, and experiments of 
dissolution. 

For this their influence on Union and Nationality have we under- 
taken to review the course of the deadly antagonists. "Within the 
Union, then, alone the question of Slavery can be solved in such 
a manner as to bring permanently the greatest benefit to all par- 
ties concerned. This is, indeed, the American question, and it will 
haunt us whether there be a temporary dissolution of the Union 
or not. Slavery, far from being a sufficient reason for breaking 



j v PREFACE. 

the Union, adds new cause, new interest, new ties to draw us still 
more closely together. 

To prove this is the object of the present treatise. Consequently, 
we have ventured to present in their proper light the two most 
famous arguments of the present day — the one taken from Political 
Economy, the other weeded out from history — and have endeavored 
to prove that they nowhere teach unrelenting hatred and disunion. 
Mr. H. R. Helper's collection of figures and testimonies having be- 
come more popular than any other, we have taken his production 
as a basis for our First Two Books. The seriousness of the subject 
seemed at first to exclude all humor ; but Mr. Helper's passion and 
folly would, in some instances, have made any other treatment 
unfair and altogether unpalatable to the general reader. 

In our Third Book we give Slavery its logical place in the pro- 
gressive history of the world, and trace its social development within 
our own country, while in the Fourth Book we show its relation 
to the Union as a political body. 

Uxion College, Jan. Sth, 1861. 



CONTENTS. 

BOOK I. 

THE NUMBERS. 

(IN REPLY TO CHAPTERS I., IX., X., XI., AND XII. OF MR. HELPER'S COM- 
PENDIUM.) 

I. The Science of Statistics. — II. False Impressions from True Num- 
bers. — III. False Reasoning from True Numbers. — IV. New York 
and Norfolk. — V. New York and New Orleans. — VI. Louisiana and 
Massachusetts, New Orleans and Boston, Alabama and Maine. — VII. 
New York buys Virginia. — VIII. Imports and Exports combined of 
all the Principal Ports. — IX. Helper mistaking Years. — X. Helper 
ignoring Paupers and Criminals. — XI. Helper on Hay. — XII. Ex- 
haustion of Lands and Hands. — XIII. The First Cause and Last 
Effect omitted by Helper in all his Arithmetical Reasonings. — XIV. 
Population, the Fundamental Cause of Production. — XV. Ratio of 
Increase of Population in Different Countries. — XVI. Ratio of the 
Natural and the Artificial Increase of the Population of the United 
States. — XVII. Ratio of Immigration in the Different States of the 
Union.— XVIII. Cause of the Difference.— XIX. Effect of Immi- 
gration on the Show-Tables of the South and the North. — XX. The 
Ultimate Effect of Production on Population. — XXI. The Negro 
Multiplying— his Show-Tables all Right.— XXII. Everybody Living 
Longer there where the "Niggers" are. — XXin. The Posterior 
Part of Helper's Statistical Body. — XXIV. Conclusion page 9 

BOOK II. 

THE TESTIMONIES. 

(IN REPLY TO CHAPTERS III., IV., V., VI., VII., AND VIII. OF MR. HELPER'S 
COMPENDIUM. 

I. Single Testimonies.— H. The Chapters HI. to LX. of Mr. Helper's 
Compendium.— ni. The Testimony of the Union.— IV. The Testi- 
mony of England.— V. The Testimony of France.— VI. The Testi- 



Vi CONTENTS. 

mony of Germany. — VII. The Testimony of Kussia. — VIII. The 
Testimony of Greece and Rome. — IX. The Testimony of the 
Churches and of the Bible. — X. The Testimony of Living "Wit- 
nesses. — XL General Remarks on the Testimonies.— XII. Mr. 
Helper's Bloody Plan 59 

book in. 

THE DEVELOPMENT. 

I. Slavery in History. — II. Negro Slavery in History. — IH. Continu- 
ance of Negro Slavery in the Southern States. — IV. The Plea of the 
Curse.— V. The Plea of Race Inferiority.— VI. The Plea of Philan- 
thropy.— VLL The Plea of Necessity.— Vni. The Plea of Self-in- 
terest.— IX. The Plea of the Constitution. — X. Requisites for a 
Truly Philanthropic Emancipation : 1. Delicacy; 2. Political Non- 
interference with the South ; 3. Prudence. — XI. Actual "Work al- 
ready Accomplished in our Land : 1. Prohibition of the Slave-Trade ; 
2. Abolition of Slavery ; 3. Spreading of the White Population ; 4. 
Amalgamation ; 5. Colonization. — XH. Conclusion 81 

BOOK IV. 

THE CRISIS. 

I. Balance of Power. — H. Secession. — HI. Our Policy. — IV. Integrity 
of the Union ; the National Property, Fortifications, Custom-Houses, 
etc. ; the Separate States : Texas ; California ; Louisiana ; the Border 
Slave States ; Tennessee and Arkansas ; the two Carolinas, and the 
Western Gulf States. — V. Prognostic of a Southern Hexarchy. — 
VI. A Proposal for a new Compromise. — Conclusion 131 



BOOK I 



THE NUMBERS. 



THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 



book: i- 
THE NUMBERS. 

IN REPLY TO CHAPTERS I., IX., X., XI., AND XII. OF MR. 
helper's COMPENDIUM. 



I.— THE SCIENCE OF STATISTICS. 

We have taken as a basis of this first part of our treatise 
Mr. Helper's famous Xumbers, by the aid of which he 
attempts to draw a new dividing fine between two sec- 
tions of the same country. These Numbers have become 
a sort of ground-work for popular reasoning on Union and 
Disunion. And this bearing alone is the cause of our 
attack. But before entering upon a special review of 
them, we will make a few general remarks. 

The science of statistics is yet in its swaddling-clothes. 
Statistical accounts were kept in ancient times, but they 
referred principally to the government, and not to the 
nation at large. In the middle ages such accounts were 
entirely neglected ; and what there were at any time had 
neither system nor order. In most modern times this 
science has grown, and especially during the present 
century ; though even now the world and its philosophers 
are not agreed in respect to its limits or its definition. 

1* 



jq THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

A regular census of the population, to be repeated at 
fixed intervals, was first instituted by the United States, 
in the first year of its existence, and only since the begin- 
ning of this century have England and France followed 
our example. But what confusion reigns in these census 
tables, even in our modern times, may easily be seen from 
a few glances at their headings and diagrams, not to men- 
tion the single blunders which so frequently incur the cen- 
sure of the common daily press. 

F. B. Hough, the superintendent of the New York 
census in 1855, confesses in despair, "that it is, especially 
as it regards the wealth and production of the State, a 
labyrinth which we can not hope to be able to survey, 
unless a change is made in the whole system." What 
names shall we give to the censuses of other States, if 
that of New York is already seen to be " a labyrinth ?" 
But into such labyrinths Mr. Hinton Rowan Helper 
went groping for his numbers. No wonder he was lost, 
for Ariadne's thread seems not to have fallen to his lot. 

H. F. Beachelli (one of those untiring German savans 
whose patient toiling remains ever a wonder to us Yankees 
as a class), in a recent statistical work on Germany, names 
several hundred volumes as his authorities, and adds, then, 
humbly : " I, of course, could only give approximate state- 
ments, and had to omit many things from want of sufficient 
data." 

There is, indeed, no writer of any note, nor " any thor- 
ough scholar or profound thinker," who is not aware of 
the imperfect state of this science. Improvements are 
being made continually ; but, as yet, sufficient care is not 
taken in collecting the statistics, nor is there system in it, 
nor has any system been applied during periods sufficiently 



THE NUMBERS, 



11 



long to warrant all imaginable deductions and generaliza- 
tions. 

But all sciences, in their infancy, are somewhat presump- 
tuous. And this is the -case with the newly-invented sci- 
ence of statistics. Everything must now be reduced to 
numbers. Virtue, vice, morality, education, misery, hap- 
piness, slavery, freedom, love — all these vague and un- 
mathematical quantities — must now be expressed in math- 
ematical formulas. For there is no more quality : every- 
thing is quantity ! This cant has, for a long time, been 
ringing in our ears, and Mr. Hinton Rowan Helper seems 
to be one of its modern trumpeters, though of the lower 
order. 

Yet we must take men as they are, and, therefore, we 
will now view Mr. Helper in his character as number- 
dealer. 

II.— FALSE IMPRESSIONS FROM TRUE NUMBERS. 

Y^e must take men as they are, and we must also take 
numbers as they are. We will now suppose that the num- 
bers which Mr. Helper extracts from official reports, and 
those which we ourselves will draw from similar sources, 
are all true and correct. They are all — let us suppose — 
exact numerical expressions of real facts. Now let us 
give a few examples, to see what the impressions are which 
these true numbers may make on our minds. We take 
them from the Official Census of the United States, 1850. 

TABLE I. THE DEAF AND DUMB, BLIND, LAME, INSANE, AND 

IDIOTIC PERSONS IN NEW YORK AND VIRGINIA. 

State of New York 6,630 

State of Virginia 3,675 

This is a very nice statistical table, and quite character- 



12 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

istic of the science of statistics. " The deaf and dumb, 
blind, insane, and idiotic persons," like the Living Wit- 
nesses, are all huddled together in one company. A happy 
family, indeed ! 

After we had recovered somewhat from the shock the 
presence of such a variety of cripples naturally caused, we 
looked again at the figures, all told and positive. At first 
sight — and this is the only sight men often take — New 
York seems to have almost twice as many " deaf and dumb, 
blind, insane, and idiotic persons" as Virginia. And we 
did, indeed, set ourselves at work to bewail the glorious 
Empire State, which, in spite of its freedom, was getting 
so distressingly blind and insane, and deaf, and idiotic, and 
dumb, while darkened Virginia saw and heard, and thought 
and spoke in a ratio so much greater. 

Now, there is nothing so very unfair in this example. 
We get about the same impression from many of Mr. 
Helper's tables, and his bewailings are often not based 
on firmer ground. But let us look at one of his exam- 
ples: 

TABLE II. THE EXPORTS OF NEW YORK AND VIRGINIA. 

Mr. Helper states that the exports in 1852 amounted 

(in round numbers for popular use), 

In New York to ■ i .000 

In Virginia to 2,505,000 

A common man compares these two numbers and ex- 
claims : " Alas ! Virginia has forty times less exports than 
Xew York!" Now let us but add the comparative popula- 
tion of the two States : 

X. w York, 1850 3,097,000 

Virginia, 1850 1,421,000 

And, without going into any further reasoning, but by 



THE NUMBERS. 13 

only finding the proportions of the exports to the number 
of inhabitants, our wonder and surprise would be reduced 
at least fifty per cent. We will soon give more examples ; 
but we have first another observation to make, intimately 
connected with all these numerical parades. 

III.— FALSE REASONING FROM TRUE NUMBERS. 

No one doubts that there must be a cause for these 
special facts and their representative numbers, and indeed 
a cause for just what they are. We mean, they must be 
the result of some agent, or the consequence of some prior 
principle ; and we must see, too, that the numbers may all 
be correct, singly and added, but still we may mistake 
their cause or causes, mistake the relations of several such 
numerical tables, mistake their consequences, and at last 
their effect on man. For man is, after all, the end 
of the whole song of numbers and notes. There seem, 
then, to be some difficulties in the way of using and 
explaining numbers; but Mr. Helper does not think 
so. He has an improved camera obscura, a kind of 
a dark-lantern or "nigger" glass, which, showing every- 
thing in the same swarthy hue, gives at once the 
cause for everything, seen or unseen ; and that is, by- 
the-by, the only glass he ever uses. While thus we 
others, poor mortals, must break our heads, and think, 
and compare, and study, and observe, he simply looks 
through his mysterious glass and exclaims: "Slavery!" 
and all difficulties vanish at once. We envy the man for 
his time-and-labor-saving machine, but can not refrain from 
giving our curious readers a few examples, to show in what 
a peculiar way it works. We are tempted to believe that 
its balance-wheel is a little out of order. 



14 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

IV.— NEW YORK AND NORFOLK. 
The wise Governor of Virginia extols, as Mr. Helper 
quotes, the bygone trophies of the harbor of Norfolk, and 
laments its present miserable condition, numbers ever being 
added to demonstrate and to prove. Xov, there is many 
a harbor on the long coast of the Atlantic which has 
met with a similar fortune, both South and North. It was 
prophesied that New York would become "the center 
of trade and great emporium of North America," and 
even of the whole Western world, long, long ago — long 
before Governor Wise bewailed his country — at a period, 
indeed, when the enslaved children of innocent darkness 
were still gracing the shores and streets of New Amster- 
dam. The James River is no Hudson, and the Alleghanies 
are no Palisades. The lakes of the North, too, have some 
little influence on commerce. We might as well compare 
London with Norwich. But still Mr. Helper uses his dark 
machine, looks through the glass, and answers : " Slavery!"' 
Now, does Mr. Hintox Rowan Helper really think 
that, if Virginia had emancipated her slaves as soon as 
New York, the proportion between the commerce of 
Norfolk and that of New York would have still been the 
same in 1850 as it was in 1790? Or, that "the direct 
foreign trade of Norfolk would still exceed that of the city 
of New York?" Or, that Virginia would still "stand pre- 
eminently the first commercial Siate of the Union?" Or, 
" that her commerce would still exceed in amount that of 
all the New England States combined ?" No, we can not 
think him lacking thus much in judgment. But still, his sta- 
tistical exhibitions would lead to such conclusions, and he 
himself must have had similar impressions when he turned 



THE NUMBERS. 15 

away from the picture he had drawn of the two States, 
" with feelings mingled with indignation and disgust." 

V.— NEW YORK AND NEW ORLEANS. 
» 
But why did Mr. Helper not take the statistics of 

New Orleans and compare them with those of New York ? 
This would have been, in every respect, a fairer compari- 
son than New York and Norfolk. New Orleans is the 
great outlet of the Mississippi, the principal point of attrac- 
tion for the South and West ; New York a similar magnet 
for the North, East, and Northwest. Now let us see the 
exports of the one and of the other, not forgetting, how- 
ever, that New York now rules, and will probably rule 
for many years to come, over the largest productive area 
of the United States. 

TABLE ITI. EXPORTS AXD IMPORTS. 

[From the " Annunire de VEconomie Politique et de la Statistique," Paris, 1S59.] 
[The table refers to the year 1857 — at least we think so, from compar- 
ing some of its general items with the report of the Secretary of the 
Treasury of the United States for that year.] 

Total exports of the United States $338,985,000 

Total exports of New York 111,029,000 

Total exports of New Orleans 91,536,000 

Total exports of Boston and Charlestown. . 24,894,000 
Total exports of Mobile 20,575,000 

This is the order of the cities in amount of goods ex- 
ported. In this table New Orleans is the second, and, 
indeed, comes very near to New York. Would not this 
give a fairer and more respectable picture than New York 
and Norfolk ? Or, let us take the imports, according to 
the same document : 

Total imports of the United States $360,890,000 

Total imports of New York 222,550.000 

Total imports of 31 States fexc. New York) 148,340.000 
Total imports of Boston and Charlestown. . 44,840,000 

Total imports of New Orleans 24,891,000 

Total imports of Philadelphia 17,850,000 



IQ THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

\Ye see from this table that New York takes two thirds 
of all the imports of the United States, and New Orleans 
comes immediately after Boston, and before Philadelphia. 
At any rate, this would again have been a fairer compari- 
son than New York and Virginia, South Carolina and 
Pennsylvania, North Carolina and 3Iassachusetts. 

But let us imitate Mr. Helper. 

VI. — LOUISIANA AXD MASSACHUSETTS — NEW OE- 
LEAXS AXD BOSTON— ALABAMA AND MAINE. 

TABLE IT. VALUE OF EXPORTS FEOM 1856 TO 1857. 

[From the official report of the Treasurer of the United States.'] 

Exports of Louisiana (Slave State) $91,894,000 

Exports of Massachusetts (Free State) 30,146,000 

Exports of New Orleans (Slave) 91,536,000 

Exports of Boston and Charlestown (Free) . . 24.894,000 

Exports of Alabama (Slave) 20,576,000 

Exports of Maine (Free) 3,716,000 

There is that negro-loving Massachusetts, of good old 
Puritan stock, with its manufacturing palaces and its 
spacious port! There is Northern Maine, with its im- 
measurable natural wealth and its magnificent harbor ! 
And still the poor Slave States are ahead of them ! Neither 
the elevation of modern Athens nor the depth of Portland 
can stifle " our indignation and disgust !" But the picture 
would become still more alarming if we added some items 
of population. We have not the populations of 185 7 at 
hand, and therefore we must be content to give those of 
1850. The numbers would now be different, but the ratios 
would not vary much. 

Population of the State of Louisiana 517,000 

Population of the State of Massachusetts 994,000 

Louisiana had already three times as many dollars of 

exports as Massachusetts; but the comparison of their 

populations would double the ratio. 



THE NUMBEES. tf 

Oh, thou unfortunate Massachusetts ! twice three times 
below thy Slave sister on the Mississippi ! Thou sunkest 
so low probably because, in days of yore, thou burnedst 
with Puritan zeal those four innocent Quakers, in rashness 
the prototypes of thy Abolitionists ! 

And thou, thrice unhappy Boston, Charlestown included, 
free white and free colored, and still 870,000,000 behind the 
Slave city of New Orleans ! Why didst thou emancipate 
Mum Bet ? That first free " nigger" girl of the North is 
the cause of all thy shortcoming ! 

But this would be Helper's lo<nc and Hinton Rowan's 

o 

rhetoric, and we abstain from indulging longer in those 
articles. 

Let us open his own show-tables again ! 

VII.— KEW YORK BUYS VIRGINIA. 

Mr. Helper had probably his numerical hosts continu- 
ally before his eyes, and sometimes accidentally combined 
one item with another, and then made a comparison without 
" jumping exactly at conclusions." Thus he saw the num- 
bers which express the real and £>ersonal wealth of the city 
of New York, and somewhere in their vicinity the num- 
bers of Virginia. " Well," says he, " what do you think of 
that ? The city of New York could buy the whole State 
of Virginia!" Now, what is Mr. Helper's purpose? 
Why his surprise ? Is that all due to Slavery ? Are there 
no other rich cities in the world ? The wealth of a whole 
nation often concentrates in a city. There is no Negro 
Slavery in England; but they say London could easily buy 
one or two provinces of its own — New York and a few 
European kingdoms included. 



18 THE AMERICAN QUESTION: 

VIII.— IMPORTS AND EXPORTS COMBINED OF ALL THE 
PRINCIPAL PORTS. 

Fighting, with numbers as arms, seems, after all, a pleas- 
ant exercise. It fastens the interest, and while it amuses, 
it strengthens the Constitution. We must continue this 
prelude a little longer. 

TABLE Y. TOTAL IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. 

[From the " Annuaire" (quoted above).} 

Of the United States $723,850,000 

New York 346,939,000 

New Orleans 116,784,000 

Boston and Charlestown 73,167,000 

Charleston, S. C 30,023,000 

Philadelphia 24,985,000 

Baltimore 24,287,000 

San Francisco 23,566,000 

Mobile 21,485,000 

Oswego, Champlain, and Lakes 18,123,000 

Savannah 11,450,000 

Richmond 6,600,000 

There, Mr. Helper, are the principal ports of all our 
States, Free and Slave. They stand there, all in order, ac- 
cording to their merits — old grandmother New York at 
the head. But do you not see that her children follow her 
peaceably, one after the other — first a black one and then 
a white one ? Do you not see, too, that NTew Orleans has 
indeed grown to be rather a big boy, though raised down 
South, where the " niggers" are ? "Why will you come 
and disturb this order and harmony between children of 
the same mother, who walk along dressed in numbers 
more harmonious than the planets even ? 

But Mr. Helper has somewhat the nature of a comet, 
and hence his disturbing influence. Before we lose sight 
of him entirely, we may point out a few more of his 
eccentricities. 



THE NUMBERS. iq 

IX.— HELPER MISTAKING YEARS.* 
Mr. Helper, in his first comparisons, which were to pre- 
pare the way for all "indignation and disgust," chose not 
only three Free States which are generally considered as 
the most wealthy and populous of the whole Union, and 
compared them with three Slave States which show, ac- 
cording to the United States census, the least growth ; 
but, in order to make the " disparities" still more " de- 
grading," he selected just those years which best suited 
his " patriotic purpose." Thus, in his comparison of the 
imports and exports of New York and Virginia, he saw 
fit to give the exports of 1852 instead of 1853 — Virginia's 
tables showing, in the former year, $1,000,000 less than in 
the latter, and New York $21,000,000 more. Immediately 
afterward, in the table of imports, he changed again to 
1853, New York having imported in that year $46,000,000 
more than in 1852, and Virginia $336,854 less. He draws 
quite liberally on the uneven treasures of 1852, 1853, 1854, 
and 1855. Sometimes, too, he mistakes States for Cities, 
and vice versa. Thus, he does not conrpare the exports of 
Pennsylvania and South Carolina, as he does of New 
York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina ; but 
he takes Charleston and Philadelphia. The States, how- 
ever, would give the following results : 

Pennsylvania. South Carolina. 

Imports in 1791 $3,436,000 $2,693,000 

Imports in 1853 6,255,000 15,400,000 

The strongest Pro-Slavery State would compare too well in 
that respect. 

° Several tables and estimates were thankfully received by the 
author from S. Bakstow, a student in Union College. The numbers 
9, 10, 11 are based upon a selection of them. 



20 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

But why did the impartial "patriot" not compare 
Maine and Georgia, Michigan and Missouri, Connecticut 
and Kentucky, which would have given much fairer re- 
sults ? They would have been altogether fairer States to 
be compared with each other, in regard to extent, natural 
advantages, and history. The educational statistics, espe- 
cially, would have confounded Mr. Helper's universal 
argument. 

X.— HELPER IGXOPJXGr PAUPERS AND CRDIIXALS. 

But to his six States Mr. Helper might well have added 
some statistics about pauperism and criminality, things 
which are regarded by some to be as sure an index of the 
state of society as the amount of hay and hemp produced. 
We may supply here that little oversight. 

TABLE VI. WHOLE NUMBER OF PAUPERS SUPPORTED AND 

CRIMINALS CONVICTED WITHIN THE VEAE 1850. 

PAUPERS. 
States. Population. Paupers. Proportion. 

New York 3,097.000 39,835 1 in 50 

Virginia 1,421,000 5,118 1 in 200 

Massachusetts 904,000 15,777 1 in 60 

North Carolina 869,000 1.931 1 in 400 

Pennsylvania 2,311,000 11.550 1 in 200 

South Carolina .... 668,000 1,642 1 in 400 

CRIMINALS. 
States. Population. Criminals. Proportion. 

New York 3,097,000 10,279. . . 1 in 300 

Virginia 1,421,000 107. .. 1 in 13,000 

Massachusetts 990,000 7,250. .. 1 in 1,200 

North Carolina .... 869,000 647 ... 1 in 1,300 

Pennsylvania 2,311,000 858 ... 1 in 3,000 

South Carolina 668,000 46. . . 1 in 14,000 

But we know well that the result of such comparisons 
would destroy the symmetry of the artistico-statistical 
work of the patriot, and on that ground he may be par- 
doned by an art-loving community. 



THE NUMBERS. 21 

XL— HELPER ON HAY. 

" We can now prove," Mr. H. says, " and we shall now 
proceed to prove, that the annual hay crop of the Free 
States is worth considerable more, in dollars and cents, 
than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay, hemp, and cane- 
sugar annually produced in the fifteen Slave States." He 
quite liberally gives $11 as the average value of a ton of 
hay, and produces the following recapitulation : 

Hay crop of Free States $142,138,998 

Sundry products of Slave States 138,605,723 

Balance in favor of Free States $3,533,275 

Now, the tables and estimates of Prof. De Bow, w the 
able and courteous Superintendent," are quite different. 
According to his Compendium of the Census of 1850, we 
find the average price of hay to be seven dollars, and that 
of the other products differing in a similar way from 
Helper's " impartial" estimates. (See tables CLXXXYI. 
and CXX. of the United States Census.) Our recapitula- 
tion would then present the following figures : 

Hay crop of Free States $88,836,874 

Sundry products of Slave States 141,100,081 

Balance in favor of the South $52,263,807 

The value of the cotton crop of 1850 alone exceeded, 
according to Prof. De Bow's tables, the hay crop of the 
North by 82,000,000. In a similar way might other tables 
be modified. Bushel Measure Products would appear as 
follows : 

Free States $276,830,041 

Slave States 244,770,070 

Balance in favor of the North $32,069,041 

Instead of Mr. Helper's 44,782,636 



22 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

And the Pound Measure Products would present the fol- 
lowing table : 

Free States $151,260,408 

Slave States 155.048,222 

Balance in favor of the South S4, 387, 814 

Instead of Helper's in favor of the North. . 59,199,108 

Besides, the agricultural home manufactures show, ac- 
cording to Prof. De Bow, a balance in favor of the South 
by more than $8,000,000, which might be added to the 
bushels or pounds of the South. The District of Colum- 
bia, too, is mentioned there as of some little value, while 
in the eyes of the tabulating Mr. Helper it is a perfect 
nonentity. But we must abstain from further particulars. 

XII.— EXHAUSTION" OF LANDS AND HANDS. 

We have pointed out some of the modifications of 
which Mr. Helper's numbers are susceptible, though we 
consider them one by one. These were, however, but a 
few sldrmish.es among the outposts, of little advantage 
to either side. We now begin to make more wholesale 
work of them, though the main battle is not yet on hand. 

Mr. Helper speaks of the exhaustion of the South ; 
but his words and conclusions might just as well be ap- 
plied to the whole Union. We all — Slave States and Free 
States, North and South — are exhausting our lands and 
our hands, our soil and our labor, our agriculture and out- 
general industry. We take all the different branches of 
industry together, because they are as intimately and 
naturally connected as the members of our physical bodies. 
An injury done to one is an injury done to all. The time 
is gradually passing away in which party politicians can 
further arouse and excite the producer against the manu- 



THE NUMBERS. 23 

facturer, or the merchant against either. We begin to 
understand that their interests are the same. Long before 
Bastiat published his Harmonies Economiques, this prin- 
ciple was anticipated. The" systematic exposition of it by 
modern economists can leave no doubt in the mind of the 
impartial student as to its merits. Let us be glad that 
the dark times of industrial enmity are coming to an end ! 
There is no truth in the old saying, " What one gains, 
another must lose !" Our earth is not a pandemonium. 
Only as long as men are ignorant of their true self-interest, 
is there a " helium omnium adversus omnes" — a war of 
everybody against everybody. As society advances and 
civilization grows, the great principle of harmony is per- 
ceived to reign over all that concerns matter or man. 

Let us now refer to our own H. C. Carey, and see 
some of the applications of this principle to the United 
States. We can not do better than to use his own lan- 
guage, for he is the acknowledged apostle of this " har- 
mony of interests." He has directed all the powers of 
his mind toward that one great principle, and has ex- 
pounded it with an energy almost bordering on mono- 
mania. We have so much the more a right to quote him, 
as he, too, has written statistical works, and also a volume 
on Slavery. In his Letter X. to President Buchanan, 
he says : 

" Throughout the larger portion of the Union the market is distant 
hundreds and thousands of miles, and the consequences are seen in 
the fact that the soil is becoming almost everywhere exhausted — 
wealth thus diminishing when it should increase. 

"How it diminishes has recently been shown by an eminent agri- 
culturist, from whom we learn : 

"That the potash and phosphoric acid annually taken from the 
land is worth, at the usual market-price of these commodities, nearly 
$20.000.000— scarcely any of which is ever returned. 



24 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

" That the ashes of 600,000,000 bushels of corn are annually taken 
from the soil — scarcely any of which are ever returned. 

' ' That the total annual waste of the mineral constituents of food is 
1 equal to 1,500,000,000 bushels of corn.' 

" 'To suppose,' says the author of these estimates — 'to suppose that 
this state of things can continue, and we, as a nation, remain pros- 
perous, is simply ridiculous. We have as yet much virgin soil, but 
it will not be long ere we reap the reward of our present improvidence. 
It is merely a question of time, and time will solve the problem in a 
most unmistakable manner. What with our earth-butchery and prod- 
igality, we are each year losing the intrinsic essence of our vitality. 

' ' ' Our country has not yet grown feeble from this loss of its life- 
blood, but the hour is fixed when, if our present system continue, the last throb 
of the natio?i's heart will have ceased, and when America, Greece, and Rome itill 
stand together among the ruins of the past. 

" 'The question of economy should be, not, How much do we an- 
nually produce, but, How much of our annual productions is saved to 
the soil ? Labor employed in robbing the earth of its capital stock 
of fertilizing matter, is worse than labor thrown away. In the latter 
case, it is a loss to the present generation ; in the former, it becomes 
an inheritance of poverty for our successors. Man is but a tenant of 
the soil, and he is guilty of a crime when he reduces its value for other 
tenants who are to come after him.' 

"Waste, such as is here described, Mr. President, is a crime, and it 
finds its punishment in the natural, moral, and political decline, to 
which your attention has now been called. Look almost where the 
traveler may, he is struck with the wretched condition of that which, 
in this country, is called agriculture, but which, in the civilized coun- 
tries of Europe, would be denominated pure and simple robbery of the 
great bank given by the Creator for the use of man. Its effects are 
shown in the facts that, in New York, where eighty years since twenty- 
five to thirty bushels of wheat were an ordinary crop, the average is 
now only fourteen, while that of Indian corn is but twenty-live. In 
Ohio, a State that but half a century since was a wilderness, the aver- 
age of wheat is less than twelve ; and it diminishes when it should in- 
crease. Throughout the West the process of exhaustion is everywhere 
going on ; the large crops of the early period of a settlement being 
followed invariably by smaller ones in later years." 

You may call this a dark picture, or a gloomy prophecy. 
But it is the same that Liebig but lately pointed to, from 
his far-famed laboratory. It is the same that Fe. List has 
deduced from history. It is the same that Peoudiiox reads 



THE NUMBERS. 25 

in Socialism, when he says : " Of what account can all con- 
solidations of properly and artificial manurings be against 
such a radical exhaustion !" It is the result of that suici- 
dal policy " which first exports food and then men" — that 
drives the son from his home and sends him to seek his 
fortune in distant lands — that scatters a population over ex- 
tensive wastes of land and makes it descend in the scale 
of civilization — that disregards the value of productive 
power, and looks only at momentary production and gain 
— a policy which is ever doomed to pant and to reach after 
more lands, though the old homesteads might harbor a 
hundred millions more. It is, indeed, excusable if our 
countrymen, ashamed of their nation's decay, lose their 
patience, and write from abroad : " A nation that can not 
make its own clothing, its bunting for its flags, and carry 
its own letters, deserves to be placed where foreigners 
place us — between the Russians and Xegroes in point of 
civilization." And in the face of all this living testimony 
of all nations, Mr. Helper indifferently takes up his dark- 
lantern, and, negrofied all over, exclaims: "Slavery! 
Slavery !" And our poor laborers, still suffering from the 
dreadful crisis and general insecurity, listen with mingled 
feelings of hope and fear to the false prophet. 

National independence, diversity of employment, work 
for every talent, consolidation of our settlements, human- 
ity to our laborers, humanity to the laborers of the world, 
real, solid, undisturbed, steady progress ; all point us to a 
home market, to home industry, to a home policy, to home 
protection, recommended by all our statesmen, from 
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, to Jackson, 
Clay, and Webster, while the party tricksters and mis- 
taken philanthropists have, these long years, my stifled the 

2 



26 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

different interests of the people with the question of 
Slavery, as if it were the sole point wherein the nation 
was sore and suffering. 

It is not our present purpose to adduce extensive facts 
and reasonings on the subject of the harmony of the dif- 
ferent interests. We only ask our countrymen whether 
we might not, with equal propriety, use, at least to a con- 
siderable extent, Mr. Helper's language about the South, 
in reference to our whole Union. Substituting " Europe" 
for " the North," who can fail to be struck with the adapt- 
edness of his language to our whole common country — to 
the Slave States and to the Free States ? 

"Europe is the Mecca of our merchants, and to it they must, and 
do, make two pilgrimages per annum — one in the spring and one in 
the fall. In one way or another, Ave are more or less subservient to 
Europe every day of our lives. In infancy we are swaddled in European 
muslin; in childhood we are humored with European gewgaws ; in youth 
we are instructed out of Northern hooks [by teachers who have learned 
from European volumes, we may add] ; at the age of maturity we 
sow our ' wild oats' on European soil ; in middle life we exhaust our 
wealth, energies, and talents in the dishonorable vocation u( entailing 
our dependence on our children, and on our children's children, and to 
the neglect of our own interests and the interests of those around us, 
in giving aid and succor to every department of European power; in 
the decline of life we remedy our eyesight with European spectacles, 
and support our infirmities with European canes; in old age we are 
drugged with Northern physic [that may he so to some extent] ; and 
finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern cam- 
bric [or rather in European broadcloth], are stretched upon a bier, 
borne to the grave in a Northern carriage, entombed with a Northern 
spade [by an Irish grave-digger], and memorized with a European 
slab!" 

So we go! There is bathos for you! This is what 
somebody calls an inverted climax, or the art of sink- 
ing! ^Ir. Helper followed bis man up, or rather down, 
to the very grave, than which there is nothing lower! 
As we are sadly deficient in that sort of genius, his Ian- 



THE NUMBEE8. 27 

guagc came to us much a prqpos. A peroration charac- 
teristic of this subject of exhaustion! 

XIII.— THE FIRST CAUSE AND LAST EFFECT. 

In all his hosts of numbers and numerical deductions, 
Mr. IIintox liowAx Helper has forgotten one great 
agent; namely, Population — the very beginning from 
which every number and show-table comes, and the very 
end in which they all must concentrate again — the very 
original cause and the very ultimate effect — the funda- 
mental basis and the crowning top of the whole industrial 
edifice, with all its manifold figures, Arabic and Roman. 

We will start with a few r facts or principles, the most 
of which are self-evident. Whenever there is any explana- 
tion needed, we Avill give it, still as concisely as possible in 
order not to interrupt the general train of our argument. 

XIV.— POPULATION" THE FUNDAMENTAL CAUSE OF 
PRODUCTION. 

Production depends upon Population. Where there is 
not the latter, the former can not be. The larger the 
population is, the more extensive must be production, at 
least in our civilized communities. Generally one hundred 
men can produce more than fifty can. And, indeed, pro- 
duction not only keeps pace with population, but even 
goes ahead of it. 

This question is of too great importance to be lightly 
passed over. For there were those, and probably are still 
some, who believe that a curse rests upon all increase of 
population. Men came to this belief especially from the 
fact that certain nations of modern ages could no longer 
support their inhabitants, who therefore were forced to 



23 THE AMEKICAN QUESTION. 

leave their homes and to seek subsistence in countries as 
yet more thinly settled. Philosophers have been very 
busy trying to find a cause and a law for this phenomenon. 
The English economist, Maltiius, at last thought he had 
found them. " Population," he says, " tends to outgrow 
the production of food ; Population increases in a geomet- 
rical progression, while Production increases only in an 
arithmetical one." This theory is in immediate connection 
with that of Ricaedo hi regard to the course of cultiva- 
tion, namely, "that society begins with cultivating the 
most fertile soils, and, as population increases, must take 
possession of the poorer and less productive ones." Ac- 
cording to this compound theory, Production grows more 
slowly than Population. A nation must thus continually 
expect smaller returns for the labor of its inhabitants ; 
they have less to consume, less to live upon, and poverty 
and misery must be the end. Sismoxdi, one of this school 
of economists, uses, in this respect, the following precious 
words : " As soon as population has increased to too large 
an extent, that is, as soon as over-population takes place, 
the surplus must yield to a dire necessity. The earth 
must swallow again the children she can not nourish." 
Providence must thus take refuge in pestilence and war, 
and thus decimate human society at proper times; else 
over-population will take place, with all its horrors of 
poverty and starvation. According to this theory, the hu- 
man race has the great privilege of choosing between two 
evils — war and murder, or famine and starvation, with some 
slight variation of pestilence, or expatriation to a country 
where the doom, however, is only delayed for a while. 

Let us cast away this direful irony on Nature and 
Providence! These learned commentators on the plans 



THE NUMBERS. 20 

of God have misinterpreted the story of Pandora's box. 
Hope is still left to man, and left to him until "he enters 
hell." Nature is not so gloomy as their theory, and poor 
Providence, too indulgent, must not too often bear the 
complaint of friend and foe. Ricardo's hypothesis, on 
which, to a great extent, the whole bloody theory is based, 
has been found entirely false. Men have everywhere, as 
IT. C. Carey has proved, begun with the cultivation of the 
higher and less productive soils, and descended gradually 
to the lower and more fertile ones, to cultivate which the 
first settlers had not the requisite capital. But even with- 
out this, knowledge, and capital, and production must 
necessarily increase with the increase of population. We 
will not further discuss this point, but add some statistical 
proofs from the " Testimony of the Nations." 

McCulloch says about England: "The population of 
England, since the eighteenth century, has doubled ; the 
production certainly tripled or quadrupled." 

Peuchet, one of the most celebrated statisticians of 
Europe, says : " The peasant in France, who formerly had 
known but very gross food and unhealthy beverage, has 
now meat, wine, bread, and beer. If we turn to Germany, 
the change for the better is still more striking than in 
France; and thus, while the numbers of the population 
are continually increasing, their comforts and enjoyments 
are increasing still more rapidly." 

A writer in one of the agricultural journals of Bavaria, 
after a most careful examination and statistical comparison, 
says : " The present emigration from Europe is not com- 
manded by necessity. Europe itself is an agricultural con- 
tinent. The present population is 263,000,000. If order 
and quiet would reign, 400,000,000 of people might easily 



g THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

be supported." The southeastern part of Russia might 
alone feed a whole continent. 

Production increases, then, faster than population. That 
this is the case with the United States, too, writers of 
every description have proved, by filling their volumes 
with pleasing tables concerning the great increase of our 
material happiness. 

We do not wish to be misunderstood in this. We said, 
that it is population which causes the production and origi- 
nates thus the statistical show-tables of exports and imports, 
of agriculture and commerce, and of every item of national 
wealth and happiness which can be expressed by numbers. 
We went further, even, and showed that a hundred persons 
produce not only twice as much as fifty, but even more ; 
perhaps three or four times as much — for different reasons 
to state which we will not interrupt our general argument. 
And this is the opening of our labyrinth ! But we will go 
slowly, and may, at our pleasure, safely retrace our steps. 

XV.— RATIO OF INCREASE OF POPULATION IN DIF- 
FERENT COUNTRIES. 

We know now, on the whole, the effect of population 
on production. Now let us compare the statistics of our 
own country with those of other leading nations of mod- 
ern civilization, and see at what rate nations generally 
increase in population ! Let us find out whether we, the 
United States of America, are above or below the com- 
mon rate. We will not now ask why or wherefore, but 
only see and compare the statistical facts. Their con- 
nected thread will gradually lead us to causes and influ- 
ences which worked upon Mr. II.'s show-tables of the 
South and of the North. 



THE NUMBERS. 31 

TABLE VII. EATIO OF XATI'IIAI, CNUBEASE OF POPULATION 

OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES I "l> WITH THE U. S. 

[From the Camis of the U. S., 1S50.] 
States. Tear, Population. Year. Population. 

Great Britain, . . L800 15,800,000 1851 . . .27,475,000 

England 1801 8,350,000 L851. . .16,921,000 

Ireland 1805 5,395,000 1851 . . . 6,516,000 

Scotland 1801 1,008,000 1851... 2,888,000 

France .... 1801 27,349,000 1851 . . . 35,783,000 

Prussia 1816 10,349,000 1849. . .10,331,000 



f Whites.. 4,304,000] 
| Fr. Col'd. 108,000 | 
United States . . 1800 \ Slaves . . . 893,000 j- 1851 



19,553,000 

434,000 

3,204,000 

[ Total.. 5, 305,000 J [ 23,191,000 

We will add here the table which shows the increase of 

the population of the United States from decennium to 

decennium. 

TABLE VIII. RATIO OF THE INCREASE OF THE POPULATION 

OF THE UNITED STATES FROM DECADE TO DECADE. 

Years. Whites. Free Colored. Slaves. Total. 

L790 3,172,000 59,000 697,000 3,929,000 

1800 4.304,000 108,000 893,000 5,305,000 

1810 5,862,000 186,000. . . 1,191,000 7.239,000 

1820 7,861.000 238,000. . . 1,538,000 9.638.000 

1830. . . . 10,537,000 319,000. . . 2,009,000. . . .12,866,000 

1840. . . . 14,195.000. . . . 386,000. . . 2,487,000. . . . 17.009,000 
1850. . . . 19,553,000 434,000. . . 3,204.000. . . .23,191,000 

\Ye see from these tables that Great Britain has not 
quite doubled its population in fifty years. England, sep- 
arately or with Scotland, has a little more than doubled, in 
the same number of years. France has, during that same 
half century, increased its numbers by only a little more 
than one half, and Prussia has, during- that time, increased 
at about the same rate as England. To double the popu- 
lation in about fifty years, has been the highest ratio ob- 
tained by any of these modern nations, though some sta- 
tisticians state that England doubled its population in forty- 
five years. Or, as the Census says : " The annual increase 
of the United States has been nearly three times as great 



32 TnE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

as that of Prussia, notwithstanding the large population 
that was added to her by the partition of Poland ; more than 
four times as much as Russia ; six times as much as Great 
Britain ; nine times as much as Austria ; ten times as much 
as France." 

But how does it come that the United States is so much 
ahead of any other nation ? During the same fifty years 
it has increased its population to almost five times its origi- 
nal number. It has not doubled in fifty years, but in 
twenty-five, nay, almost in twenty, if we compare only the 
white tables. 

Everybody will, of course, give immigration as the 
reason of this extraordinary increase. But let us see how 
much this faster increase of our population is due to immi- 
gration. 

XVI.— RATIO OF THE NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL 
INCREASE OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED 
STATES. 

Should we proud Republicans, modern Israelites, and 
modern Romans — as we are often called — measure our- 
selves and our natural productiveness by the standard of 
other nations, such as England, France, or Prussia — called 
the most enlightened nations of old Europe — our numbers 
would, at best, have doubled in fifty years ; that is, our 
population would have been, in 1850, 10,610,000, instead 
of 23,191,000. There would remain an increase of 12,581,- 
000 which could not be accounted for otherwise than by 
immigration. Or, if we take only the white population, 
there would have been, in 1850, 8,G08,000, instead of 
19,553,000, and the immigrants and their descendants 
would then be 10,945,000. 

Let us see another account. An able statistical writer, 



THE NUMBERS. 33 

from Washington, who took great pains in his calculations, 
arrived, after having carefully counted each year's in- 
crease, at the following conclusions : 

TABLE IX. — THE NATIVE WHITE POPULATION. 
[ From Hunt's MerdiariM Magazine, No. G2TCVI.] 

The native white population of the United States, in 1850, 

would have been, without immigration since L800 8,995,000 

" 1810 10,710,000 

" 1820 12,318,000 

" 1830 14,330,000 

" 1840 10,771,000 

And the immigrants and their descendants number, in 1850, 

since 1840 3,205.000 

" 1830 5,656,000 

" 1820 8,069,000 

" 1810 9,277,000 

" 1800 11,032,000 

One account ascribes thus to immigration, since 1800, 
12,581,000; the other, 10,945,000; and the third account 
gives 11,032,000. 

What right have we, now, to reject one of these accounts or 
an approximate number ? Do we procreate more children 
than other nations? Is our ratio of annual births over 
deaths more favorable? Do we live longer? And if 
some statisticians wish to have it so, have they ever given 
full weight to the effects of immigration on the tables of 
population ? If they give the ratio of our natural increase 
as being 0.13 or 0.30 per cent, in our favor, may they not 
have been slightly mistaken in their difficult calculations ? 
Did they know, and if so, did they make due allowances 
for the fact, that children of foreign parents, though born 
but one day after their mother's arrival on this soil, are all 
classed among the natives ? But though the result of our 
numerical and ethnological comparisons and deductions 
can hardly be doubted, still we will fortify it by another 
consideration : namely — the fact that the immigrants in 

2* 



34 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

crease naturally faster than the natives, and, therefore, 
help proportionately more than the natives to fill the tables 
of pop ulation. We quote from a speech of the author, 
delivered some years ago at Albany : 

" This fact," he says, "has hut lately attracted public attention. In 
the Massachusetts census of 1855, the reporter, summing up his 
statistics, finds that the native population of that State is about three 
and a half times larger than the foreign one, hut that the births are 
almost equal, 48 per cent, native, and 46 per cent, foreign, the rest 
unknown. He looks with Avonderment at those numbers, and comes 
to the conclusion that the immigrants must propagate themselves 
quicker than the natives. Foreign women, he calculates, must produce 
children three times faster than American ladies. Yet this greater 
fecundity of foreign women is not confirmed, certainly not to that 
extent. Newspapers came, then, to the aid of the perplexed reporter, 
and stated that there were more foreign females in Massachusetts than 
males ; but this also did not explain the proportion of the increase. 
The reporter remains puzzled, and he guesses, at last, that if that 
increase goes on at the same ratio, the foreigners will yet swallow the 
natives. 

"Now, this mystery is fully explained by our above observation, 
namely, the great proportion of grown-up persons among the immigrants. 
This is the fundamental cause of the faster increase. Take on an 
average an equal number of foreigners- and natives, and there will be 
more grown-up persons among the foreigners, and therefore more 
marriages, and then more children. Many foreigners in that number 
will be ready to enter the vineyard of the Lord, and extend the 
empire of human flesh, while as many natives are yet lying in their 
nurses' arms, with hardly flesh enough for their own tender limbs." 

But let us see the proportion of grown persons among 
the immigrants. We refer to the table of Mr. Edmund 
Flagg, the efficient Superintendent of the Statistical 
Bureau of the State Department. It is for the year 1855, 
but may well be taken as a standard for former years, 
for the proportion of grown persons must in those times 
have been still larger, as it is but lately that immigrants 
have had the conlidence to come, with their whole fmrilies, 
to this "far-off land." 



THE NUMBEE8. 35 



TABLE X. THE AGE OF IMMIGRANTS. 

[From the Report of the Superintendent of the Statistical Bureau of the State 
Departnu nt t 1S£5.] 



Age. 


Males. 


Females. 


Total. 


Under 5 years of age. . . . 


. . 8.000.. 


. . 8,000.. 


. 16,000 


Between 5 and 1Q years. 


.. 7,000.. 


. . 6,000.. 


. 14,000 


10 " 15 " . 


.. 0.000.. 


. . 5,000. . 


. . 11,000 


15 " 20 " . 


.. 8,000.. 


. .16,000.. 


. . 34,000 


20 " 25 " . 


..21,000.. 


..16,000.. 


. 40,000 


25 " 30 " . 


. .22.000.. 


..10,000.. 


. . 32,000 


30 " 35 " . 


..1:5,000.. 


. . 5,000. . 


. . 19,000 


35 " 40 " . 


.. '.1,000.. 


.. 4,000. . 


. . 12,000 


Forty years and upward. . 


..12,000.. 


.. 7.000.. 


. . 19,000 


Age not stated 


..11,000.. 


.. 8;ooo.. 


. . 19,000 








Total 


.135,000.. 


..89.000.. 


. . 224,000 



This table shows that three fourths of the immigrants 
may be taken as persons between the ages of fifteen and 
forty-five. Now, set these two classes of new-comers in our 
nation at work — on one hand you have the products of 
natural increase by birth, on the other the products 
of artificial increase by immigration ; — the former nothing 
but frail little children, to be petted and nursed for years 
to come ; 75 per cent, of the latter commonly stout and 
healthy, and at once ready to work and produce ; — the 
former yet exposed to all those decimations by the diseases 
and dangers of the young ; the others, already tried and 
decimated on land and sea, and only those of them counted 
who had stood the trial ! Now, let this process go on 
year after year, which will increase proportionately faster ? 

But we will be liberal toward ourselves ! We will not 
take the twelve millions, or the eleven millions. We will, 
on account of the somewhat greater mortality of foreign 
children, go still a million or so lower, and say that about 
one half of the white population of the United States in 
1850 is due to the immigrants and their descendants since 
the year 1800. 



36 



THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 



[According to the well-known statistician, F. H. Bea- 
chelli, the number of inhabitants of German origin, in 1856, 
was 5,250,000, viz., about the fifth of the then population 
of the United States. If we now add to this number of 
Germans the large Irish immigration, and then that of the 
other nations of Europe, our own account will be found 
rather too low than too high.] 

And if, then, it is true that about one half of the white pop- 
ulation of the United States is due to the immigrants and 
their descendants since 1800, would it not be a fair con- 
clusion, too, that the statistical show-tables of " material" 
products — and such are most of those expressed by num- 
bers — owe at least half their swellings to the immigrants ? 
Which class of inhabitants are chiefly engaged in " mate- 
rial" production? We may be allowed to quote once 
again from an address of the author : 

" Certainly, this Union might have reached its present power — I do 
not say without immigration at all (for we are all immigrants), hut 
without immigration since 1800 — hut not so soon, not so fast ; it would 
have had to toil and to grow yet many years to come. There would 
now he less capital here, less cultivated land, less commerce ; there 
would he fewer engines, fewer shops, fewer roads, fewer vessels, fewer 
houses and palaces, fewer comforts, and fewer luxuries. Your men-of- 
war, your fortifications, your public buildings, your power at home. 
your power abroad throughout the world, your private and public 
treasuries would dwindle, and many of the natives who arc now man- 
agers, and conductors, and directors, and merchants, and speculators, 
and officers, and reverends, and doctors, and judges, and-senators, most 
honorable Senators, many of them, would now be common day-labor- 
ers, mechanics, instructors, or canal diggers—professions which arc 
most graciously left to the foreigner— prof ssions of less honor, of less 
pay, bul of more labor." 

The same language may be observed in the columns of 
the New York Tribune (March 11, 1859) : 

"Our able and ambitious youth arc attracted to trade, to the profes- 
sions, to fillibustering of some sort— rarelj to any form of productive 



THE NUMBERS. 37 

industry. Advertise to-day for a man to manage a farm, and three 
fourths of the responses ^ill come from men of European birth. Ad- 
vertise for a boy in a lawyer's office, a clerk in a store, a partner in a 
venture to Pikes Peak, and two thirds of the responses will come from 
native Americans. We arc, as a people, intent on getting suddenly rich 
by some kind of speculation, rather than on slowly acquiring a com- 
petence by industry." 

Thus, should the above number of the foreigners and 
their descendants be found even somewhat too large, there 
would be no doubt about our final conclusion, that at least 
one half of the common production of the country is due 
to them. 



XVII.— RATIO OF IMMIGRATION IN THE DIFFERENT 
STATES OF THE UNION. 

"We have thus seen how much of the population and 
how much of its more rapid increase, how much of the 
production and how much of its larger tables, must be due 
to immigration. We now will ascertain what portion of 
this immigration fell to the part of the South, and how 
much to the part of the Xorth, and then we will try to 
find the causes of the difference. 

"We take again the Census of the United States f&r 
1850. There we will see the proportion of foreigners — 
"not born here" — to the natives, "born here, whether 
from native or foreign parents." For the official census is 
liberal toward the children created abroad but born here ; 
they are all called " natives." Our tables, however, do not 
suffer in this case, since all States are treated alike liberally. 

[We expressly give our statistical tables in round num- 
bers, in order to impress more strongly their general 
character, and the proportion of their difference when 
compared with one another.] 



38 TnE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

TABLE XI. THE RATIO OF FOREIGNERS IN THE FREE STATES. 

[From the Official Census of the United States, 1850.] 
Free States. Total Inhabitants. Foreigners. 

California 92.000 21,000 

Connecticut 370.000 38,000 

Illinois 851,000 111,000 

Indiana 988,000 55,000 

Iowa 192,000 20.000 

Maine 583,000 31.000 

Massachusetts 994,000 163,000 

Michigan 397.000 54.000 

New Hampshire 317,000 14.000 

New Jersey 489,000 59,000 

New York 3,092.000 G55.000 

Ohio 1,980,000 218,000 

Pennsylvania 2,311,000 303.000 

Rhode Island 147,000 23.000 

Vermont 314,000 33,000 

Wisconsin 305,000 110,000 



Total 13,434,000 1,908,000 

THE RATIO OF FOREIGNERS IN THE SLAVE STATES. 

Slave States. Total Inhabitants. Foreigners. 

Alabama 771,000 7,000 

Arkansas 209,000 1,000 

Delaware 92,000 5,000 

Florida 87,000 2,000 

Georgia 906,000 6,000 

Kentucky 982,000 31,000 

Louisiana 517,000 67.000 

.Mai viand 583,000 51,000 

Mississippi 606,000 4,000 

Missouri 682,000 76,000 

North Carolina 869,000 2,000 

South Carolina 668,000 8,000 

Tennessee 1,002,000 5,000 

Texas 212,000 17.000 

Virginia 1,421,000 22,000 



Total 9,612,000 304,000 

XVIII.— CAUSE OF TnE DIFFERENCE IN THE PROPOR- 
TION OF IMMIGRANTS IN THE DIFFERENT STATES 
OF THE UNION. 

During our whole argument we heard frequent whispers 
of: "Slavery! all due to Slavery!" We will now make 
some " excerpts" from the above statistical tables, in order 
to see whether those whispers were oraculous. 



THE NUMBERS. 39 

TABLE XII. DIFFBEENCE IX THE PBOPOBTTON OF IMMI- 

GRAXTS IN PBEE STATES. 

g TATE8 Square Miles. Foreigners. 

New York 47,000 665,000 

Pennsylvania 46,000 303,000 

Massachusetts 7,000 l63 »595 

V-ermoni 8,000 33,000 

New Hampshire 8,000 H,000 

Wisconsin 53,000 110,000 

Michigan 50,000 54,000 

TABLE XIII. DIFFERENCE IN THE PBOPOBTION OF IMMI- 
GRANTS IN SLAVE STATES. 
States Square Miles. Foreigner?. 

South Carolina 28,000 8,000 

Georgia 58,000 0,000 

Kentucky' 37,000 31,000 

Louisiana 41,000 07,000 

Tennessee 44,000 5,000 

Florida 59,000 2,000 

Alabama 50,000 7,000 

TABLE XIV. DIFFERENCE IN THE PROPORTION OF IMMI- 
GRANTS IN SLAVE AND FREE STATES COMPARED. 
Stvtes Square Miles. Foreigners. 

Maryland (Slave) 11,000 51,000 

Maine (Free) 35,000 31,000 

Louisiana (Slave) 41,000 07,000 

Iowa (Free) 50,000 20,000 

California (Free) 188,000 21,000 

Missouri (Slave) 65,000 76,000 

Michigan (Free) 50,000 54,000 

TABLE XV. SOME ADDITIONAL DIFFERENCES IRRESPECTIVE 

OF SQUARE MILES. 

Free and Slave States. 
States. Foreigners. 

Mississippi (Slave) 70,000 

[owa (Free) 20,000 

Maryland (Slave) 51,000 



Free States. 
States. Foreigners. 

Connecticut 88,000 

Khode Island 23,000 

Massachusetts 163,000 

Illinois 111,000 

New Jersey 59,000 

Wisconsin 710,000 

Indiana 55,000 



Vermont (Free) 33,000 

New Hampshire (Free) ... 14,000 

Kentucky (Slave) 31,000 

Maine (Free) 31,000 



There are four tables as simple as the multiplication 
table. In the first of them there are seven Free States. In 
none of these is there any Negro Slavery. Why, then, is 
there such a difference in their share of immigrants ? N ew 
York and Pennsylvania have about the same number of 



40 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

square miles ; but the former has about twice as mauy im- 
migrants. Vermont and New Hampshire, too, have about 
the same area ; but the former, again, has o*ver one half 
more foreigners than the latter. Massachusetts, with 
about 1,000 square miles less than either, has still more 
than ten times as many foreigners as the one, and five 
times as many as the other. Wisconsin, with about the 
same number of square miles as Michigan, has more than 
twice as many foreigners. Has Southern Negro Slavery ex- 
erted its whimsical influence even on the Northern States ? 

But look at the second table. There, again, are seven 
States. Ah Slave States ! And still, South Carolina, with 
an area half that of Georgia, has one fourth more immi- 
grants. Louisiana has only one seventh more square miles 
than Kentucky, and still has more than double the num- 
ber of immigrants. It has fewer square miles than Ten- 
nessee, but twelve times as many foreigners. Florida and 
Alabama have about the same area, but the latter has two 
thirds more foreigners. What is the reason of this differ- 
ence ? Negro Slavery again ? Is Negro Slavery blacker 
in Florida than in Alabama ? Is the Nesn'O less a Neoro 
in Louisiana than in Tennessee ? 

Let us pass on to the third table. Another seven States, 
some Free, some Slave. There is Maryland with its Slavery, 
and Maine with its Freedom. And still Maryland, with 
only one third of the area of Maine, has 20,000 more immi- 
grants. Louisiana has one fifth less square miles than 
Iowa, and still the Slave State has three times as many 
foreign inhabitants as the Free. California, with more 
than four times as many square miles as Louisiana, has 
three times less foreigners. Missouri, with one seventh 
more square miles than Michigan, has two sevenths more 



THE NUMBERS. 41 

foreigners. Has, in these cases, Negro Slavery been an 
attractive force ? 

Or, let ns take Northern and Southern States without 
reference to square miles, as in the fourth table ; for there 
is, both South and North, plenty of room for a hundred 
times more immigrants. Has Negro Slavery caused Con- 
necticut to have more foreign inhabitants than Rhode 
Island ? Massachusetts more than Illinois or New Jersey ? 
Wisconsin more than Indiana? Mississippi more than 
Iowa ? Maryland more than Vermont or New Hampshire ? 
Kentucky the same number as Maine ? 

Or, compare the number of foreigners in each State with 
its native population ; or the number of foreigners to the 
square mile with all the inhabitants to the square mile ; 
the different States will most stubbornly resist a common 
ride or law, but especially will they object to such quack 
barometers as the deus ex machina invented by Mr. Hix- 
ton Rowan Helpek. 

From the facts and numbers presented by us, any im- 
partial reader must see that there were other causes at 
work besides Slavery to direct the waves of emigration, 
and to produce such a difference in the numbers of foreign- 
ers in the different States. From the earliest period of our 
Union, the emigrants have chosen certain ports, which were 
not pointed out to them by the white or black color of some 
of the inhabitants, but by the great order of Nature. Places 
like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or New 
Orleans were the great and tried harbors to receive the 
emigrants. They were the great starting-points selected 
by Nature as the principal thoroughfares of the Western 
Continent. Many of the emigrants, then, when once ar- 
rived on the shores of their "Promised Land," would 



42 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

not, could not, wander far into the interior, and only a 
small minority went out of the regular course to States 
and places on the left or on the right. 

As the inland routes were gradually opened, they moved 
in larger numbers farther to the West. This was in ac- 
cordance with the country's policy, which, on the whole, 
was to scatter the population over an area as large as pos- 
sible, to form new Territories and new States, to get new 
agricultural products to exchange for foreign fabrics, in- 
stead of building up the home market, and consolidating 
and developing the old lands and States. But when the 
emigrants saw their plans thwarted in the East, and new 
hopes and "free homesteads" held out in more distant 
regions, whither should they move ? Neither was cotton the 
article of growth which they were acquainted with, nor had 
the South the climate which they were accustomed to 
in the countries from which most of them came. They, 
therefore, went North and West! Says the celebrated 
statistician, G. F. Kolb : " It is the climate similar to that 
of Central Europe which attracts the emigrants to the 
North (Did West of the United States, in preference to 
any other land." We add here a table which shows which 
climate sends the most emigrants, and which might thus 
expect the most : 

TABLE XVI. PLACES OF BIRTH OF THE FOREIGN POTT J. A- 

TION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
{From the Ce?isus of the United States, 1950.] 
States. Number. 

England 278,000 

Ireland 901,000 

Scotland 70,000 

Wales 29,000 

Germany 573,000 

Belgium 1 ,000 

Holland 9.000 

Switzerland 13,000 

Total 2,110,000 



Static. 

A.ub1 ria 


Number. 
900 




1 000 


Norway 


12,000 


1 Vninark. 


1,000 


Sweden 


3,000 


Prussia 


10,000 


British America 


.... 147,000 



THE NUMBEES 43 

2,116,200 emigrants come from the Northern and Middle 
States of Europe, and the total number is only 2,212,000 ! 
How many remain to be counted to the southern parts of 
the world ? France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Mexico, and the 
whole of Asia, have only about 90,000 to be divided among 
them. 

There is, then, the climate, the geographical position, 
the river-beds, the bays and the harbors, the lakes, the 
mountains and valleys, the soils and the zones, and many 
other natural facts, which determined the future of this 
whole continent and of the different States long before the 
first foot of civilized man touched this soil. The Tiber and 
the Thames, the Nile and the Rhine, had their histories 
predicted by the Book of Nature long before a Rome or a 
London, before pyramids or castles, were dreamt of. And 
so the St. Lawrences, the Hudsons, and the Mississippis 
of this continent had their future marked out long before 
31r. Helpee came, trying to negrofy our understandings. 

XIX.— EFFECT OF IMMIGRATION ON TIIE SIIOW-TABLES 
OF THE SOUTH AND OF THE NORTH. 

Let us now sum up this whole matter of immigration. 
We have stated and proved that population is the funda- 
mental cause of all production ; 

That if the population increases, the production must 
increase at a still higher ratio; or that, if there are twice 
as many persons at work, they will " manufacture" thrice 
or four times as large and as plentiful show-tables of every 
sort and material ; 

That population in our land increases at a most enor- 
mous rate, and that neither England nor France can keep 
up with it ; 



44 • THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

That this extra glory is, however, not due to any natu- 
ral privilege, but to the immigrants, of whom seventy-five 
per cent, are, like Melchisedek, already grown up when 
they are born ; or — what is the same for all practical con- 
siderations — when they are borne to this country ; 

That at least one half of the population of the United 
States iii 1850 is due to the immigrants and their descend- 
ants since 1800 ; 

That the different States, whether Free or Slave, had 
different proportions of these immigrants ; 

That this difference can not be explained alone by Mr. 
Helper's universal cause of everything under creation : 
namely, Negro Slavery ; 

That nature has marked out the course of empires, and 
that Providence does not first make cities and then rivers 
to flow by them, and at last shores and banks to keep them 
in proper limits. 

And now, if we take another look at the tables we 
have presented, we see that the whole number of foreign- 
ers — foreign-born inhabitants — in these United States is 
2,212,000, of which the Free States take about six sevenths, 
and the Slave States only one seventh. 

If, now, we take this as a general ratio — and we may, 
according to other tables, fairly do so — of the whole im- 
migration and descendants since 1800, and call this whole 
immigration only 10,000,000, we find that 8,500,000 of 
these artificial helps were allotted to the North, while the 
South received only 1,500,000. 

Now, set two countries, or two sections of a country, at 
work, the one receiving annually a fresh supply of men 
and women at the rate of 7,000 to every 1,000 of the 
other — continue this process for a period of fifty years, 



THE NUMBERS. 45 

these foreign men and women continually digging and 
toiling, producing matter and men with eagerness, in- 
creasing in numbers at rates so astonishing, cultivating 
lands, working day, and even night, in the sweat of their 
faces, with bodies stout and hands accustomed to labor, 
bringing millions of dollars into the country, saving old 
and laying up new stock, increasing and thriving lustily 
on a fresh and grateful soil, in a free land, in the very 
midst of industrial progress, in an era to which none pre- 
vious in history can be compared as to swiftness of pro- 
duction and effective means and instruments to assist the 
hand of man — let these proportions (seven to one), under 
such most favorable circumstances, and under influences 
never dreamed of before, work on for a period of fifty 
years — add then to this, if you please, the difference be- 
tween the Northern and the Southern laborer — take the 
Negro as he is, wholly barbarous, half barbarous, or half 
civilized, unskillful at least, for many years, causing for a 
long period a heavy draft on Southern treasure for the 
purchase-money (mostly paid to Northern traders) — a 
slave, too, and, as such, ready and willing to work only 
because and when he must — a slave noic, to be a slave 
forever, as far as he knows, without hope of position or 
of gain ; while the immigrant brings, at least, traces of 
the civilization of the world with him, is a free man, 
works for himself, appropriates whatever wages he may 
make and whatever his wife and children may earn — the 
master of his hands, of his family, of his property, with 
considerable chances for honor and position even — let the 
two sections under such different influences work on for 
a period of fifty years, and at the end of this period com- 
pare the numbers and figures, the statistical tables of 



4Q THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

wealth and of products, of commerce, agriculture, and 
manufactures of the one section and the other, aside from 
all the various natural causes favorable to the one and 
disadvantageous to the other — will you be surprised to 
find the tables of the one much lower than those of the 
other ? 

We are not surprised that the statistical tables of the 
North are so much larger than those of the South, but 
we are surprised that they are as large in the South as 
they are. The South has done more than we should have 
expected, under existing circumstances. 

But, let none imagine that should the South at once 
liberate all its slaves, there would be such a rush of immi- 
grants as Mr. Helper would like to see, by the aid of his 
dark-lantern. It will take many generations to accustom 
the Northern-born native, or foreigner, to more Southern 
climes, and only a slow and steady advance will, or can, 
give the South the artificial aid which will enable it 
to increase more rapidly in numbers and men. And this 
slow and steady advance, as far as destined by Nature, 
has been going on this long time, in spite of Negro 
Slavery, which, to be sure, has lessened the pressure, but 
could not stem the flood. But that rush of foreign- 
ers can not, even in the North, always remain the 
same. It has probably reached its crisis. It will, and 
d.oes sink, and in the same manner the Northern show- 
tables will and do sink, while the South, less accustomed 
to artificial aid, will feel less the growing want. There is 
not total darkness in the future of the South ! Let 
it manage its powers well! Let it give a willing ear 
to the teachings of history ! Perhaps De Soto's dreams 
about the Valley of the Mississippi may yet be realized, 



THE NUMBERS. 47 

and in that great central empire of the continent of North 
America, the South " will not be the least among the 
children of Israel." 



XX.— THE ULTIMATE EFFECT OF PRODUCTION ON 
POPULATION. 

It is a question, after all, whether the greater amount of 
production in a country is a sure index of a corresponding 
degree of happiness and welfare among its people. Al- 
ready the Italian economist, Fuoco, said: "Not produc- 
tion, but distribution, is the first and principal question in 
economy." 

And Blaxqxji, in his " History of Political Economy," 
called this same idea " the great motto of the social science 
of the nineteenth century." 

One nation may, indeed, produce a vast amount of ma- 
terial products, and still keep the producers, especially 
the laborers, in a miserable condition, by giving them but 
a small share in the common produce. Another nation 
with a smaller amount of products may distribute this 
amount more equally and proportionately, and thereby 
procure a greater amount of common happiness. Just as 
in the case of families. One father may gain twice the 
amount that another does, but use proportionately six times 
as much to gratify his own selfish appetites. The family 
of the latter will be the better off; there will be a greater 
amount of happiness caused by a smaller amount of 
means. In a nation, the fathers with the depraved appe- 
tites are the rich and privileged squanderers. The whole 
principle may be stated thus : A nation is well off, not in 
proportion to the amount, but to the equal distribution 



4 g THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

and the rational use of its wealth and products — a field as 
yet little explored by the science of statistics ! 

Without now going further into an elaborate discussion 
and explanation of this question, however important it 
may be, we will merely state that the natural increase of a 
people, their quality remaining unimpaired, is generally 
taken as an index of the degree of their happiness. But 
we repeat, this increase shows less the amount of the 
production of wealth, than the proportion of its distribu- 
tion. The principle itself, however, is unassailable in its 
general bearing. 

We now apply this to the population of the South. 

XXI— THE NEGRO MULTIPLYING— HIS SHOW-TABLES 
ALL RIGHT. 

We will compare the Negroes under different masters. 
H. C. Caeey, in his work, " The Slave Trade, Domestic 
and Foreign," Chapter II., shows that in all the British 
Islands where there was Negro Slavery, the Slaves 
universally decreased in number. He first takes up Jamai- 
ca, and shows that the number of Negroes imported into 
that island can not have been less than 700,000. "If 
to these," he continues, " we were to add the children 
that must have been born on that island in the long period 
of 1*78 years, and then to reflect that all who remained for 
emancipation amounted to only 311,000, we should find 
ourselves forced to the conclusion that Slavery was here 
attended with a destruction of life without a parallel in the 
history of any civilzed nation." In St. Vincent, the 
births steadily diminished in number. In British Guiana, 
there was a decrease of 12,000 from 77,000 in fifteen 
years ! and a similar decrease in other colonial posses- 



THE NUMBERS. 49 

sions. The number emancipated in the West Indies 

was 660,000, while the number imported and retained for 

home consumption had certainly amounted to 1,700,000. 

Had Mr. Helper known this, or spoken of it, how " the 

chevaliers of the lash, and the robbers and the murderers," 

would have again flown from his lips ! But let us see 

what the statesman and economist Carey says, who 

has certainly as much philanthropy as the showman, 

Helper : 

11 While thus exhibiting the terrific waste of life in the British 
Colonies, it is not intended either to assert or deny any voluntary 
severity on the part of the land-holders. They were, themselves, as 
will hereafter be shown, to a great extent, the slaves of circumstances, 
over which they had no control, and it can not be doubted that much, very 
much, of the responsibility must rest on other shoulders !" 

This is the same H. C. Carey whom Mr. Helper brings 
up among his Testimonies of Living Witnesses ! Might there 
not, in the South of our country, too, some such extenu- 
ating circumstances have been found which should have 
tempered somewhat Mr. H.'s wrath and bridled his bloody 
tongue ? We will see ! 

Mr. Carey passes on to Negro Slavery in the Union, and 
after a most careful examination and comparison of statis- 
tical tables, gives us what he calls " a tolerable approxi- 
mation to the number of Slaves imported into the territory 
now constituting the Union, namely, on the Avhole, 
333,500." 

" The number," he says, " now in the Union exceeds 
3,800,000 ; and even if we estimate the import as high as 
380,000, we then have more than ten for one ; whereas in 
the British Islands we can find not more than two for five, 
and perhaps even not more than one for three. Had the 
Slaves of the latter been as well fed, clothed, lodged, and 

3 



5Q THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

otherwise cared for, as were those of these Provinces and 
States, their numbers would have reached seventeen or 
twenty millions. Had the blacks among the people of 
these States experienced the same treatment as did their 
fellows of the islands, we should now have among us less 
than one hundred and fifty thousand Slaves !" 

Has not Mr. Helper been " too hasty in making up his 
mind on the subject," though he says the contrary ? Has 
he not "jumped at conclusions," though he denies it? 
Has he acted with " perfect calmness and deliberation," as 
he so naively asserts ? He says, that " the non-slavehold- 
ing white of the second degree of Slavery is treated by 
the slaveholders as if he were a loathsome beast." How 
must the Negro of the first degree of Slavery have been 
treated ? Who or what stands a degree lower than " a 
loathsome beast?" Mr. Helper's dictionary of Vile 
Words not being at hand, the question must remain un- 
answered for the present. 

And still, the Negro lived, his cheeks grew fat, his body 
plump, he multiplied and replenished the earth, and we 
have seen as jolly a crowd of darkies down in Richmond, 
as ever on Boston Common or in the Wilds of Africa ! 

Now, who tells a falsehood, Mr. Helper or his Num- 
bers? It is the old story again! The Numbers are all 
well. But Mr. H. sees " through a glass darkly." 

XXIL— EVERYBODY LIVING LONGER THERE WHERE 
THE " NIGGERS" ARE. 

Those Southerners, in spite of their Negro Slavery, 
have still produced something. They have, as Mr. Hel- 
per indirectly proves, sorm agriculture, some manufacture, 

some cotton, some banks, some railroads ; they write, or 



THE NUMBERS. 51 

at least send, through the post-office some letters, found some 
schools and libraries, publish some newspapers, give some 
votes, build some churches, get out some patents, some Bibles 
and some tracts, harbor some foreigners, send out some mis- 
sionaries, and do something for colonization and civilization. 
But not only this : we find at the end that these people 
" down South" do, after all, not suffer a great deal from 
their producing only some rye, and some wheat, and some 
newspapers, and some lot cabbage, for : Tliey do not only 
not die faster than the Northern people, hut, on the contrary, 
they are healthier and live longer. We add a table to 
prove : 

TABLE XVII. — RATIO OF DEATHS TO LIVING POPULATION. 

{From the Official Compendium of Mr. Helper's Crisis.] 
Motto of his Title-page.— " The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by 
liberal things shall he stand."— Isaiah. 

States. Percentage. 

Southern States (Slave) 1 in 74.60 

Northern States (Free) 1 in 72.39 

TABLE XVIII. AMERICAN LONGEVITY. 

[From a recent edition of Blake's Biographical Dictionary.'] 

States. Number of Deceased Centenarians. 

Southern States (Slave) 68 

Northern States (Free) 59 

The reason for this greater Mortality and shorter Lon- 
gevity in the Northern States must lie somewhere hidden 
among " the Potatoes, the Clover-Seeds, the Brood Mares, 
the Beans and Peas, the Stall-fed Beef, and other Produce," 
from which Mr. Helper so scientifically draws his argu- 
ments. 

Now, which is the better of the two? To produce 
fast and die fast, or to produce slower and live longer? 
Of what use is all our digging out, and heaping up, and 
gathering in, when during all the trouble necessary in this 



52 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

process of production and reproduction, our heads grow 
light, our hearts gloomy, and our bodies lank, and at the 
end of the whole affaire, when at last the time for enjoy- 
ment should have arrived, Pale Death comes to give us 
kindly the last stroke, that sends us beyond the reach of 
the dunghills of our material wealth ? 

While the reader is left for a moment to himself to de- 
cide which part to choose, we will gather up whatever is 
left of Mr. H.'s statistical existence. 

XXIII.— THE POSTERIOR PART OF MR. HELPER'S STA- 
TISTICAL BODY. 

The main body of Mr. H.'s statistics is contained in 
that part of his Compendium which precedes the Dead 
and Living Testimony. We are through with that. There 
remains now nothing but the Appendix, which, by-the-by, 
has all the characteristics of appendixes in general. It is 
protracted, unmeaning, and winds up in a curl. 

There is a whole sea of mysterious numbers, all care- 
fully labeled with " Negro Slavery," and any amount of 
Northern gewgaws, strewn around like Yankee notions, 
interspersed with sundry rhetorical nourishes " excerped" 
and repeated from the Body of his Statistics. It is a kind 
of deluge after the Testimony of the " Wiser and Better'' 
men. 

But, unconsciously or with his wonted impartiality, Mr. 
Helper puts, at times, some seasoning in, which makes 
the surface a little more palatable. Such is his innocent 
slur on the number-filled North. To be sure, he does not 
spare the Southern " breeder, buyer, and seller of bipedal 
black cattle, who withal professes to be a Christian," but 
he speaks also of " Northern quacks, Northern lashes for 



THE NUMBERS. 53 

Southern slaves, Northern gimcracks and haberdashery." 
This is quite a relief. But the Northern pianos, Northern 
knives, and Northern apparel are carefully repeated. We 
at first thought, in seeing these old faces again : " Hero 
beginneth the second" edition of the same book ! 

But the most attractive part in this appendix of several 
chapters, is the grand display of Mr. Helper's logic, un- 
assisted by the dark-lantern. For it must not be ex- 
pected that he again brings forth but one reason — namely, 
his old cherished Negro Slavery. Not at all ! The ap- 
pendix hangs rather loose from the body and plays its 
capers with wanton individuality. 

We will now give the curious reader a few examples 
of that caudal logic : 

He says that the South has contributed but little 
to the cause of Negro Slavery in Kansas, and the reason 
of it is, not Negro Slavery this time, but the poverty 
and the niggardliness of the Southerners. This exceptio 
hi principiis would be admissible were it not for the deli- 
cacy of its terminology. 

In his chapter on offices, he proves that the Southern- 
ers have, in most cases, the majority, all on account of 
Negro Slavery ; but when he accidentally finds an office 
where the Northerners happen to have the majority, he 
does not give Negro Slavery as the reason, but superior 
or special talent which can only be grown up North. (Mr. 
Helper is from North Carolina.) 

He shows, then, the comparative literary character of 
the North and of the South, by giving the number of 
newspapers, and especially the circulation of the New 
York Tribune and the New York Herald in the Free and 
Slave States. We think, of course, highly of the news- 



54 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

paper, but that would be stretching its influence ultra 
modum et decorum. 

He also measured the physical and mental activity of 
the members of the United States Senate, by the number 
of public documents they frank. According to this calcu- 
lation, Chandler, of Michigan, has over twenty times as 
much of that article as Crittenden, from Kentucky. And 
Douglas, of Illinois, has three hundred times as much as 
Sumner, of Massachusetts. "This shows, also," Mr. H. 
says, "that the people of the South are not a reading 
people; but tobacco, politics, and especially fine-looking 
wenches, constitute the warp and woof of their conversa- 
tion." Mr. Douglas sent 345,000 documents, that is, more 
than all the Free States Senators together (Mr. Chandler 
excepted). He is not one of "the lazy pro-slavery offi- 
cials," we suppose, " who perpetuate the ignorance and 
degradation of their constitutents." 

He complains that he was not able to publish his book 
in the South, when he had just given extracts from the 
Charleston Standard, which in strong terms criticised the 
condition of the South. This is called by logicians a con- 
tradictio in adjecto. 

He thinks, too, that the city which publishes the most 
books and papers must, eo ipso, be also the most literary. 
Poor " country folks," like Mr. Helper and his reviewer, 
must renounce their fame to the glory of New York, Bos- 
ton, or Philadelphia. And then lie adds, that the execu- 
tors and agents of Calhoun, Benton, Simms, and other 
Southern writers, send their works to be published in New 
York. The reason for this strange phenomenon is Negro 
Slavery, and, therefore, all right ! 

These examples are all nicely set up in copious num- 



THE NUMBERS. 55 

bers, and surrounded with occasional winnings, such as 
about the poor women working in the field, whom he 
would like to advance into the frying-pans of factories. 

But at last he proves that the non-slaveholding whites 
are very illiterate, and thus, we humbly think, that they 
can not read, much less understand, his book ! Now, this 
crowns the whole ! Poor Mr. Helper can neither reach 
his subject nor his object. He is no agitator ! He only 
addresses the non-slaveholding whites, and for them he 
wrote his book ! and, now, on the very last pages of his 
volume, he proves that his clients can not read! Why 
did he not first write a "Webster's Spelling-Book" for 
the non-slaveholding whites of the South ? 

And thus he winds himself through, until, on the last 
page, hi " indignation and disgust" over what he wrote, 
he curls up in the following graceful style : 

" Southern Literature is a travesty on the profession of 
letters" and " Southern Religion is a stench in the nostrils 
of Christendom." 

Negro-nursed Washington ! first son of the South and 
of the Union! ward off the heartless curses of a per- 
verted man, whose motive may be good, but whose 
tongue runs loose and wild. There is now a dearth of 
great men, North and South ! Send us whole-souled men, 
no matter what zone or section may produce them ! We 
do not need, as yet, "American Platos, Homers, Shak- 
speares, and Humboldts," but send us a few more States- 
men, who, dispassionate but unflinching in their princi- 
ples, are able to lead our great empire safely through the 
storms that overhang it ! 



56 TH E AMERICAN QUESTION. 

XXIV.— CONCLUSION. 

We think we have thus proved, in this Book, that the 
famous Numbers, or, in other words, the Statistical Dispari- 
ties between the Free and the Slave States, do not justify 
our resorting to violent words and violent measures, 
whereby we increase the enmity between the two sec- 
tions, and make the Union appear less desirable and less 
honorable. 

They give us no reason why we should be ashamed of 
the South, and throw heartless curses on its land and 
people. 

But we must here abstain from any general remarks on 
the great question. In this first Book we have strictly 
confined ourselves to the Numbers ; in the second, we will 
treat, in a similar way, the Testimonies. After having, 
then, overthrown these two separate arguments, we will 
face the whole question. 



BOOK II 



THE TESTIMONIES. 



book: ii. 
THE TESTIMONIES. 

IK EEPLT TO CHAPTERS II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., AND VIII. 
OF MR. HELPER'S COMPENDIUM. 



I.— SINGLE TESTIMONIES. 

We will now show that the Testimonies of single men 
and nations, taken from their historical connections, have 
no better claim than the Numbers. 

"Were we to follow separate testimonies, we would for- 
ever be tossed around as on a stormy sea, knowing not 
whither to go. But there is a steady progress of human- 
ity — a progress which gradually corrects or overrides all 
individual fancies and theories, and teaches us, in the 
plastic forms of real events, the ways and measures for 
our future course. 

But before we lay before the reader the mark-stones of 
this progress, and give Slavery its relative place therein, 
we will first pass in review the Testimonies as they are 
presented by Mr. Helper. We take him again, because 
he has classified them better than any one before him. 
We may seemingly aid Mr. O'Conor, but we do this 
only in order to overthrow, once for all, that double-faced 
sophistry which draws its arguments from single and dis- 
connected Testimonies. 



60 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

II.— THE CHAPTERS III. TO IX. OF MR. HELPER'S 
COMPENDIUM. 

At the beginning of ChajDter m., Mr. Helper advises 
the people " to forget for a moment what he has written 
on the subject of Slavery, and to ignore all that he may 
write hereafter." Though it be difficult for us to forget or 
to ignore what he has not yet said, the object of the advice 
is highly commendable. For, after having given his own 
opinion, he now appeals to the "sayings of wiser and 
better men," to collect which has cost him " much time, 
labor, and money." Our indebted coimtry has probably, 
by this time, repaid him amply for his trouble. Trouble 
it must, indeed, have been to collect such an array of 
opinions, and all of them well assorted, in Mr. Helper's 
style — first Southern Testimony, then Northern, afterward 
the Testimony of the Nations, then that of the Churches, 
three pages of Bible Testimony, and, at last, thirty pages 
of Living Witnesses to bring up the rear ! A formidable 
array, forsooth ! But though his course differs sadly from 
that which he promises in his introductory chapter, where 
he says, " It is not our purpose to draw a broad line of 
distinction between right and wrong, to point out the 
propriety of morality and its advantages over immorality, 
nor to waste time in pressing a universally-admitted truism, 
that virtue is preferable to vice," still we take his issue, 
and put these abstract opinions in their proper light. 
Should we, perhaps, at times, throw too much shadow 
upon the picture, we must be excused ; for Mr. Helper, 
has certainly been too light, and airy, and spiritual in this 
part of the work. Wherever his heavy and dark brush 
appears, we will not fail to supply the necessary light. 



THE TESTIMONIES. 



61 



III.— THE TESTIMONY OF THE UNION. 

Mr. Helper seems, at first, to know the way Ave ought 
to follow. But when we think ourselves near the longed- 
for aim, we perceive that he, like an ignis fatuus, has led 
us astray. We seem, indeed, to be in duty bound, in 
these moments of danger, to wander religiously to the 
graves of our noble forefathers who have made us one and 
united, and to seek at their shrine light and knowlege for 
our fear-beset ways. But when, with Helper's help, we 
are at the sacred spot hallowed by the memories of com- 
mon struggles and the time-honored compact of our Union, 
what does Mr. H. show us ? Naught but mangled bones, 
torn with sacrilegious hand from venerable bodies ! For 
such are his " excerpts" and " extracts." 

We can not and we will not deny the noble sentiments 
of the founders of our republic. We know that Freedom, 
in the abstract, finds more sympathizers among the great 
and noble of this world, than Tyranny and Slavery. We 
know that our forefathers, almost to a man, thought our 
Slavery to be an evil, and we honor them for it. But did 
they ever use such language as Mr. Helper ? Did they 
ever propose such schemes and measures ? He has shown 
in what respect our common forefathers agreed with 
his own sentiments, why did he not show, too, in what 
they disagreed with him ? Washington, " the father of 
our country," an example to us in all that is really good and 
great — though he had such ardent wishes for the gradual 
abolition of Slavery, what measures did he propose ? 
What plans did he favor ? Or, was Lafayette's scheme, 
in form or spirit, anything like that of our modern philan- 
thropist ? Or, was Franklin's Society for Promoting the 



g2 THE AMEEICAX QUESTION. 

Abolition of Slavery anything like that corporation of 
Non-Conformists which he proposes among the non-slave- 
holding whites of the South ? Or, where are the rebel- 
lious harangues of Jefferson, who yet called the Slaves 
" citizens and brethren ?" Where the great stratagems and 
proposals of Madison, who yet opposed the introduction 
of the term " Slave" or "Slavery" into the Constitution? 
Or, has Mr. Helper more greatness of soul than Washing- 
ton, more stern republicanism than Jefferson, more wis- 
dom than Franklin, or more virtue then Madison ? Or, 
take the representative men of a second generation ! Are 
the Websters, the Clays, knaves and fools compared 
with him ? Has it not been, heretofore, a well-understood 
principle among all the statesmen of our republic, to look 
upon Slavery as upon an undeniable historical fact, what- 
ever our abstract opinions may be about its right or 
wrong ? And, is this course of action of our noble 
ancestors not as certain, not as frank, not as important as 
their abstract opinions ? Was it not always their policy, 
instead of putting forth their opinions about Slavery, 
rather to think of means and ways to get along with it, 
and to harmonize, as far as it was possible, Union and 
Reform? In all their endeavors to abolish Slavery, did 
they not always carefully appeal to the slaveholders them- 
selves, and this, indeed, privately, and not through the 
organs of an excited populace ? And did all those great 
men of other times — our foremost pride, our greatest honor 
in the eyes of the world — did they, by suppressing over 
and over again the temptings of their " abstract opinions," 
and by continually contriving new ways of peaceful reform, 
did they, the noblest men of our entire history, by yield- 
ing thus, defame their character or pollute their manhood ? 



THE TESTIMONIES. (33 

There never fell from their unstained lips, words like 
these : 

"Peevish, — Sulky, — Mean, — Boors of Vandalic hearts and minds, 
— Irreverent Distorters of the Truth,— Savage, Barbarous Kid- 
nappers, — Chevaliers of the Lash and Lords of the Shackle !" 

Are these, words of a friend and brother ? Are they 
words of an enemy, even ? Are they words of a man ? 
Or, have the insulted shades of our common forefathers 
already smitten the intemperate one with insanity ? These 
are not words to soothe! These are not the means 
to heal ! This is not the language of Peace and Union ! 

IV.— THE TESTIMONY OF ENGLAND. 

Mr. Helper is an unrelenting foe. His collective indus- 
try is inexhaustible. He is not content with appealing 
to our own noble ancestors. After having " excerped" 
testimony in favor of his opinion from the wise men of the 
South and of the North of his own land, he introduces, or 
uses in a similar way, the Testimony of the Nations. He 
begins with England. Now, we do not think that Locke, 
Fox, Pitt, and Burke would have acted more nobly, more 
liberally, and more prudently than Washington, Frank- 
lin, Hamilton, and Webster, if they had been placed in 
similar circumstances. But still, we can not and will 
not question England's philanthropy. 

To be sure, the condition of depopulated Ireland is still 
pitiful to behold. Says a recent writer on Ireland : " An 
Irishman has nothing national about him except his rags." 
Or another: "Let an Englishman exchange his bread and 
beer, and beef and mutton, for no breakfast, for a luke- 
warm lumper at dinner, and no supper. With such diet, 



Q4. THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

how much better is he than an Irishman? — a Celt, as 
he calls him. No, the truth is, that the misery of Ireland 
is not from the human nature that grows there — it is from 
England's perverse legislation, past and present." Or, let 
us look at our own shores ! How often we find the brave 
and warlike Celt of former days, crippled and degraded 
by ages of tyranny and oppression ! But, England is 
philanthrojric, and the Irish are not Negroes, nor are they 
Slaves ! 

Or, let us turn our eyes away from Ireland across the 
ocean, toward that happy land of emancipation. Says a 
recent writer : " A short term and cupidity strain the 
lash over the poor Coolie, and he dies ; is secreted if he 
lives, and advantage taken of his ignorance for extended 
time when once merged in plantation-service, where inves- 
tigation can be avoided." But again, the Coolies are no 
Slaves ; they are but hired servants, and England's jmilan- 
thropy is safe ! 

We are not yet through with the Testimony of En- 
gland, who is always loudest in condemning our Slavery. 
We will give her a fair hearing. How closely she watches 
those poor Hindoos ! How effectually she keeps them down, 
whenever they express any dissatisfaction with the happi- 
ness she forces upon them! She has instituted among 
those " half-naked barbarians" an awful solidarity, by which 
the province is responsible for the labor of all its men and 
women. But still, England is philanthropic! She has 
carried rails and Bibles, free-schools and steamboats, tele- 
graphs and libraries to India, all for the benefit of those 
half-naked barbarians ! And should telegraphs and Bibles 
not have the requisite effect of happifying, opium will be 
administered to them, and to " all the world, and to the 



THE TESTIMONIES. 



65 



rest of mankind." She will no longer permit those savage 
Hindoos to roast as witches wrinkled old women, for she 
knows too well, from her own experience, the unfairness 
of such proceedings ; nor does she, in these days, allow any- 
where the Hand of Justice to cut the ears of those who speak 
against State or Church. Now, this is decided progress ! 
England is the civilizer and Christianizer of the world! 
To be sure, there is still robbing and flogging, murdering 
and starving enough in the " dominions of the Gracious 
Queen, where the sun never setteth ;" but England, never- 
theless, dislikes Slavery in general, and Negro Slavery in 
the United States in particular, and her lords and ladies 
are ever ready to eat and drink with the poor common- 
ers of the West, eager of philanthropic royalty! There 
are similar laurels waiting for Mr. Helper, and we are 
glad, for his sake and our own, that he has appealed to the 
Testimony of our Cousins! 

But England emancipated her slaves in the West India 
Islands! She expended £20,000,000, we suppose, from 
sheer philanthropy, and may we ask: Whom did her 
philanthropic measure benefit? Jamaica, that brilliant 
island, saw her land and people degenerate, says H. C. 
Caeey ; the planter sold cheaply and left, the slave did 
not work. Such must be the effect of all revolutionary or 
sudden abolition ; and, though the emancipated lands may 
gradually recover from the ill-devised blow, they can only 
do so with loss of much property and at the cost of much 
human misery. 

V.— THE TESTIMONY OF FRANCE. 
After England comes France, as usual. But this Testi- 
mony comes at rather a peculiar time. Not many years, or 



qq THE AMERICAN QUESTION 

even months, ago, France was concerting a plan to intro- 
duce " voluntary Negro labor" into her tropical colonies, 
the demand for whose products was so rapidly increasing 
everywhere. It was said that England herself, at first, had 
favored the plan, but after having looked somewhat deeper 
into the scheme, her philanthropy, or some other hidden vir- 
tue, got frightened, and she dissuaded her noble ally from 
accomplishing the voluntary Slave-trade. For, what was it 
but a second edition of the Slave-trade, perhaps in some 
improved style, a la Fran$aise or a la Coolie? 

But Mr. Helper speaks of Rousseau and Montes- 
quieu! Does he think that the "constitutional" Mon- 
tesquieu would have acted differently from our "con- 
stitutional" Madison? Or, did Lafayette act differ- 
ently from Jefferson, the renowned pupil of Rous- 
seau and Voltaire? But, then, has Mr. H. any idea 
of the gloomy age in which those philosophers lived 
and wrote? There were in that century thirty-seven 
famines, more or less severe, in France. Rousseau 
wrote his Contrat Social to starving millions, and Mon- 
tesquieu's Esprit des Lois was but a futile remedy for a 
dying generation. Alas ! what misery was brooding at 
that time, unheeded, by the side of reckless extravagance ! 
France was approaching her revolutionary crisis ! But 
the blood of a hundred thousand, slain on the altar of 
Liberty, could not wash away her tyranny! And the 
blood of other hundreds of thousands, slain to the idol 
of Glory, could not wash away her crimes ! And in the 
face of this self-condemnation, Mr. Helfer brings up the 
Testimony of France ! Let France sweep at her own 
doors ! There is, as yet, as much dust and dirt in her 
precincts, as there was in the twelve stables of Augias ! 



THE TESTIMONIES. 67 

VI.— THE TESTIMONY OF GERMANY. 

Germany, thou famous land of thought and theory! 
Where are thy radical statesmen, to teach us systems like 
those of Mr. Helper? Thou land of slow movements, 
thou land of forty tyrants ex officio, and forty hundred times 
forty hundred assistant masters with pens and lashes, with 
anathemas and jails ! Oh, unfortunate collector ! More 
unfortunate still in your individual citations ! 

"We pass by the aristocratic Goethe, who, in his love of 
humanity, had scarcely time to think a moment of his 
country's weal or woe, and venture a few remarks on 
Luther, better known in this land. 

We must be aware that the people of Luther's time, 
like our own " good folks," were not eager after reforms 
in matters of religion only. In their articles of demands, 
the religious and worldly elements were always mixed and 
blended with each other. " Priests chosen by the com- 
munity," they asked for, and " No more Serfdom ;" " Free- 
dom of Belief — and Abolition of unjust Taxes." The spir- 
itual and temporal always went together. And they had 
reason enough to think of this world also ; for, " they 
were badly clothed, dwelt in houses without floors or 
pavements, slept on straw, lived on ' black' bread, apples, 
and water, saw meat but rarely, and many never at all, and 
had often no bread, even." 

The conservative Niebuhr, even, had to confess that the 
right was, at first, on the side of the poor people, But 
how did Luther feel and act toward the despairing 
wretches? When he heard about their rebellion, he 
wrote: " Let the balls fly among them ; else they do -till 
worse things. There is no need of pity. Obey they 



68 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

must! God, surely, will save the innocent, as He did 
Jeremiah and Lot. If He does not, they surely are not 
innocent !" Rather harsh language ! Or, in his letter to 
Baron Einsiedeln, who had asked him whether he should 
liberate his slaves: "The common man," he answered, 
"must be loaded with burdens, else he will grow too 
wanton." And loaded and burdened he was ! The revenge 
taken on those poor peasants was horrible. Those who 
had saved their lives and fled home to their families were 
hunted out and cruelly murdered or blinded, mutilated, and 
disgraced. Barefooted were they forced to beg forgiveness 
from the hand of their oppressors, and fines were laid upon 
them, to pay which it took generations and generations. 
Luther, even, was at last moved to pity ; for, " cruelty 
seemed to have gone too far." 

But this would lead us beyond the limits of our present 
undertaking. We only think that Mr. Helper could 
hardly have made good Abolitionists of Luther and 
Goethe. 

VII.— THE TESTIMONY OF RUSSIA. 

Mr. Hinton Rowan Helper does not know much of 
the political condition of the Russian people, we suspect. 
The privileged noblemen themselves are not very free. 
Says a Russian : " Their privileges are, to take office if 
they can get any; to leave it when they are dismissed; to 
go abroad if they get passports ; and to buy real estate if 
they have money." And these are the "upper-ten" of 
Russia. There are, then, some twenty or thirty classes of 
other subjects, partly slaves and partly free, and wholly 
unfree and completely slaves, amounting to an indefinite 
number of millions. Among them, there is a continuous 



THE TESTIMONIES. (59 

emancipation, in the Russian sense of the word, and the 
most modern coup d'ttat of Alexander III. is not without 
precedents among the former Alexanders. It is a difficult 
thing to emancipate those people of thirty or forty differ- 
ent races and of as many different customs, duties, and 
languages ; and a wholesale emancipation, though sounded 
with the roaring voice of the Northern Bear, is a sheer 
impossibility. Nor does the present emperor mean it so, 
though Mr. Heifer may have read his itkas so. More- 
over, if the emancipation is to be intrusted to the same 
worthy officials who had the supervision of oppression and 
taxation, then woe to the new-made Russian freeman ! 
He will have to pay dearly for what they call liberty. So 
much for the Home Department. Now a word about 
Foreign Affairs. 

We do not generally take Russia as a model of freedom, 
nor do we expect much from her in this line. Nor does 
she herself much believe in the liberty of the races. She 
has helped Austria in subduing Hungary, and has just 
finished a hundred years' war against Circassia. The last 
Will of Peter the Great is her Bible, and her Czar is her 
God. Freedom can be hoped for only as far as it does not 
conflict with the one or the other. The prospects of lib- 
erty are, then, not very fair, and we think even a Russian 
edition of the " Compendium of the Crisis" would change 
matters but little. 

VIII.— THE TESTIMONY OF GREECE AND ROME. 

This Testimony is simply absurd ; for one needs not to 
be a scholar to know the theories and practices of Greece 
and Rome in regard to Slavery. Slavery was a fixed and 
acknowledged institution among all the states of antiquity. 



70 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

They went still further. Xexophon calls all manual occu- 
pations dishonorable and unworthy of a citizen. Plato 
says that such occupations degrade those who exercise 
them. Solox, the oil-merchant, made some allowances 
for the trader only, probably from an esprit de corps. 
Aristotle calls the slave a part of the family property. 
That good old philosopher has some ugly passages, which 
do not savor much of Abolitionism. "Nature herself," 
says he, " has made Slavery," and he reasons thus on it : 
" The animals (man included) are divided into male and 
female. The male is more perfect, and therefore com- 
mands. The female is less perfect, and thus obeys!" 
(Aristotle does not seem to be very soimd on the 
Punctum JTanthippicum, or Women's Rights question.) 
" But, well," continues the philosopher, " there are among 
men those who stand as much below others as the body 
below the soul, or the beast below man. And these indi- 
viduals, fit for physical labor only and incapable of doing 
anything more perfect, are destined by Nature for Slavery, 
because there is nothing better for them than to obey. 
But what great difference is there, after all, between a 
slave and a beast ?" Singular Abolition doctrines these ! 

Yet one glance at Rome. Juvexal says : " The Romans 
consume the nations to their very bones." They had 
temples erected to Jupiter, the Plunderer, and disliked 
commerce, "because it has made others their slaves." 
But why should we waste time about something which 
schoolboys can teach ? Mr. Helper, the Blunderer, alone 
can quote such examples from History ! The domain of 
antiquity and classical antiquarianism belongs entirely to 
Mynheer Van Dyke and to your Honor Mr. O'Conor. 



THE TESTIMONIES. fa 

IX.— THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES AND OF THE 
BIBLE. 

Mr. Helper writes two chapters on this subject. But 
we think the Churches — or, rather, Mr. H.'s clergymen — 
may just as well be omitted. For they either teach the 
Bible, on which all churches are more or less based — in 
which case they are superfluous — or they do not teach 
what the Bible does, and then Mr. H. must have already 
included them under his " wiser and better men" of each 
nation and section. 

But our collector has again stepped on dangerous ground. 
We will quote for him a few verses from the Old and a 
few from the New Laws. He must try to get along with 
them the best he cau. 

"We read in Leviticus xxv. 44, 45, 46 : " Both thy bond- 
men, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be 
of the heathen that are round about you ; of them shall 
ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the chil- 
dren of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them 
shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which 
they begat in your land ; and they shall be your possession. 
And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children 
after you, to inherit them for a possession ; they shall be 
your bondmen forever: but over your brethren the chil- 
dren of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another witk 
rigor." 

In 1 Timothy vi. 1, 2 we read: "Let as many servants 
as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of 
all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not 
blasphemed." 

The venerable Thomas Scott adds, in his " Comment- 



72 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

aries on the Holy Bible," in the one case : " The Israelites 
were thus permitted to keep slaves of other nations." 
And in the other case : " This shows that Christian mas- 
ters were not required to set their slaves at liberty." 

Now, we are generally called a Christian nation, and are 
often compared to the Israelites of old. But neither in 
the one character nor in the other are we forbidden to 
keep slaves, nor could we as a Joint Stock Company of 
Christian Israelites derive, in any way, such a prohibition. 

But why refer to a book — and especially now — which 
has been used, and turned, and interpreted, and falsified 
in so many different ways, to serve any sect, or party, or 
fancy, or ambition in the history of social tyranny and 
freedom ? Why refer to a book whose " Kingdom is not 
of this earth, but of the Life to come ?" 

Let us never mention it in settling or discussing our 
Slavery question ! There is inflammatory matter enough 
between us! We do not want to call still more the 
odium theologicitm, that most odious of church-feelings, 
to our aid ! We are a progressing humanity ! Our 
heavenly wants may, in all these phases of development, 
remain the same ! The forms of worship, even, may be 
unchanged ! But our worldly wants certainly do change, 
and with them the forms of social and political life. 
Therefore, let the Bible no more interfere, lest we put the 
Good Book into a false position. 

X.— THE TESTIMONY OF LIVING WITNESSES. 

We are now, happily, over the opinions of the " wiser 

and better men," and are prepared to judge upon the 

Testimony of the Living Witnesses. Thirty long pages 

of Living Witnesses ! A formidable phalanx, which Mr. 



THE TESTIMONIES. 



73 



Helper might — as lie says — increase ad infinitum. Now, 
we do not undervalue the testimonies he has thus col- 
lected, nor even those which he might have collected, 
or may yet collect in times to come. Nor yet do, or tan 
we refute them as they are. They are all very good in 
their proper places. But one thing pleased us considera- 
bly, namely, the fact of such a motley crowd of Living 
Witnesses all being thrown pell-mell on one and the same 
platform. Seward and Snodgrass, Sumner and Phil- 
lips, Gerrit Smith and Burling ame, Carey and Par- 
ker, Greeley and Raymond, Beecher and Bellows, 
Chase and Tappan, and forty or fifty others, all huddled 
together in one common groivp ! Has any human mortal 
ever seen such a number of so different characters brought 
together so peacefully on any previous thirty pages of 
cotemporary history ? No, not in a directory, even ! 
They all have nearly the same opinions about Slavery in the 
abstract, but how different are their actions ! Some of 
them act just as Washington or Jefferson did. But 
there are others whose consciences require, in addition, the 
establishment of Underground Railroads ; others, again, 
may be called practical men, they use the abstractions as 
party capital ; there is a class, too, who, being of the 
catholic cast, think — " Faith without works is dead !" 
and therefore furnish pikes and money for others to battle 
and to die in the cause of human liberty ; there is, indeed, 
a small number — abstract opinions always being equal — 
who really fight, and fear neither death nor the gallows ; 
there is also quite a number who think most bravely, but 
" take it out" in talking, and some few r go even further 
than the rest, and try to induce the Negroes to rise in 
rebellion against their masters, and achieve, with blood 

4 



74 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

and murder, their inborn African liberties ! And all these 
different characters stand on Mr. Helper's pages firmly 
knit together ! Must these Living Witnesses not be sur- 
prised at the company they are forced to keep ? At any 
natural occasion of contact, they would fly to the four 
winds on discovering such neighbors as Mr. H. gives 
them ! But what humanity and patriotism could not do, 
Mr. Helper's jugglery has accomplished. They are all in 
apparent harmony. This is certainly a " curiosity in 
literature." 

XL— GENERAL REMARKS ON THE TESTIMONIES. 

These are the Testimonies. We did not add to each 
class of them their counterparts, which might easily have 
been found in the History of Opinions, or might have 
been gleaned, without much trouble, from the writings 
of the Pro-Slavery apostles, but we confined ourselves to 
a few illustrations. What is true of them, is true with 
respect to all others which the Helpers and the O'Coxors 
may, jointly or separately, with limited or unlimited re- 
sponsibility, hereafter collect and classify. By reasoning 
from single opinions, or even from single facts, Ave may 
at our pleasure successfully prove or disprove the same 
thing. 

We are, in this connection, spontaneously reminded of 
the famous dialecticians of old Greece. They were mas- 
ters in casuistry, and they knew that they were when they 
went to Rome to display their power. There they dis- 
proved, before astonished crowds, in the afternoon, what 
they had proved in the morning, and carried conviction 
at both times. The Roman people were at that time but 
little skilled in rhetorical tactics, and they applauded alto- 






THE TESTIMONIES. 75 

gether too liberally. Such is the popular heart, often 
yielding too generously to momentary impressions. Tout 
com/me chez nous! Such arguments are, therefore, very 
useful on occasions when momentary excitement is all that 
is aimed for. But they are valueless when we want a 
sound and solid basis for our course of action. 

But before taking leave entirely of Mr. Helper, we will 
yet look a moment at the bloody Plan with which Num- 
bers and Testimonies, collectively, have inspired him. It 
is a proposal for a wondrous coup d'etat, which would at 
once rid us of all our difficulties. 

XII.— MR. HELPER'S BLOODY PLAK 

Long before Mr. H.'s great chapter on Abolition ar- 
rives, its approach is perceived by the more intemperate 
rhetoric. The beginning of the chapter itself is, however, 
in quite a humorous and pleasant strain. It is like the 
deceitful smile of sunshine while the thunder-clouds are 
already towering over the hills that gird the horizon. So 
we take it, at least. "The non-slaveholding whites," 
says Mr. H., " ought to demand from the slaveholders 
any number of millions of dollars for the decrease in 
value of their (the non-slaveholders) lands, during the 
dark period of Slavery in the South." Well, these non- 
slaveholding whites might just as well protest against their 
having been born, and sue their parents for the damages 
sustained thereby. For, their fathers or grandfathers, or 
somebody higher up in that transcendental line that leads to 
Adam, must be responsible for those brawny " members 
from Africa," who are the cause of all the mischief. But 
Mr. H. must intend this whole compensation matter 
merely for fun; else he would not, shortly after, have 



76 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

adduced testimony to prove " that the non-slaveholders 
possess the poorest lands, and the slaveholders own the 
most fertile soils." We let it, therefore, pass as a little 
fun, and will look again into the angry lace of the threat- 
ening storm-cloud. 

Like distant thunder, the famous Plan for Abolishing 
Slavery gradually draws nearer. It has an ugly look at 
the outset, and seems to promise hard weather. Some 
excuses, pressed out by an overburdened conscience, fall 
like rain-drops through the sky. But the thunder-cloud is 
unrelenting. Nearer and nearer it draws, until at last it 
stands, mad and roaring, over our heads, and, raging, un- 
furls its blood-red banner of Destruction and Desolation. 

"1st. Thorough Organization and Independent Political 
Action on the part of the Non-Slav eholding Whites. 

" 2d. Ineligibility of Pro-Slavery Politicians — Never any 
other Vote to any one who Advocates the Retention and 
Perpetuation of Human Slavery. 

" 3d. No Co-operation with Pro-Slavery Politicians — No 
Fellowship with them in Religion — No Affiliation with 
them in Society. 

"4th. No Patronage to Pro-Slavery Merchants — Xo 
Guestship in Slave-waiting Hotels — No Fees to Pro-Slav- 
ery Lawyers — No Employment of Pro-Slavery Physicians 
— No Audience to Pro-Slavery Parsons. 

u 5th. No more Hiring of Slaves by Non-Slaveholders. 

"6th. Abrupt Discontinuance of Subscription to Pro- 
Slavery Newspapers. 

'"7th. The Greatest Possible Encouragement to Free 
White Labor." 

A few rain-drops, sprinkling excuses on the Bottses 
and Stanleys, Browns and Blairs, proved that the 






THE TESTIMONIES. 



77 



storm had passed away. Some more little thundering in 
the distance, and all was over. The sky was clear, the 
sun shone bright, and nobody was hurt, " frankly, fairly, 
squarely." 

But, earnestly, has anybody ever seen more moonshine 
and madness put into the sacred Number VII. ? What a 
horrible and ridiculous heptade ! what an awful slaughter- 
house i:>latform ! what a septuple nonsense ! And all this 
language Mr. H. addresses to the non-slaveholding whites, 
" who are," as he says, " cajoled into the notion that they 
are the freest, happiest, and most intelligent people in the 
world, and believe what the slaveholder tells them." Mr. 
Helper addresses this murderous heptalogue to these 
" illiterate" non-slaveholding whites, " who are but one 
step in advance of the Indians of the forest, who are de- 
plorably ignorant, three fourths of the adults not being 
able to read or to write their own names" [the other 
fourth being probably comprised in the nattering term 
" white sycophants who have negroes around"]. Now, 
add to this such language as — " Haughty cavaliers of 
shackles and handcuffs, and lords of the lash," while the 
Northerners are the "liberty-loving patriots," then you 
have all the elementary ingredients, not of a common 
Abolitionist of old Noah's or Webster's stamp, but of 
the Helper caste, " whose line of duty is clearly defined, 
and whose intention it is to follow it faithfully or die in 
the attempt." 

Now, we humbly think that in Kansas, at Harper's 
Ferry, and in Charleston, there have been shooting and 
murdering, hanging and dying, enough. We do not 
exactly mean by this to dissuade Mr. Helper altogether 
from dying, if he thinks he would help the cause more 



fg THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

by his death ; but still we believe that for " common 
folks," and for the great majority of people in general, 
it would be better " to do one's duty faithfully" and live 
in the attempt. But in order to work and live, a different 
plan is needed from that of Mr. Helper. His is, indeed, 
a dying effort, scented with the cold air of the grave and 
the unfriendly fragrance of corpses. 

"We attenrpt to oppose to this war, blood, and death 
scheme, a Living Plan — a work of friendship and peace, a 
proposal of union and harmony, not drawn from the heated 
crucible of our own individual fancies, hopes, and passions, 
but from the great workshop of nature, which lies open 
to all faithful students of history. It may not be covered 
with the smiles of sunshine and the pleasing light of flat- 
tered prejudices, but it leads not to perpetual war and 
final destruction. 






BOOK III 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 



book: in, 
THE DEVELOPMENT 



T.— SLAVERY IX HISTORY. 

Let us smother for a moment the angry feelings which 
long disputes have aroused within us ; let us lay aside all 
artificial issues to which enmity and exasperation have 
forced us ; let us ignore all arguments and theories which 
ambition, self-interest, and pride have created; let us for- 
get all hostile acts, on one side and on the other, to which 
our blind passions and false issues and arguments have car- 
ried us ; let us then look at Slavery as it aj>pears in History, 
not from the narrow platform of American party politics, 
but from the broad family circle of humanity, of which 
our nation is a member. Let us cast away all polemical 
spirit and look at Slavery objectively as a historical fact, 
and trace it back in the different periods of the Story 
of Man, so that we may see its development and divine 
from the Past the prospects of the Future ; for this is 
the spirit in which we must study History. 

We will, however, not give a learned treatise, but only 
sketch its course, until we arrive at our own doors, and 
see our own Slavery and the circumstances which sur- 
round it. 

Though the generous minds of the whole civilized world 
4* 



82 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

may deem it inhuman in principle for a man to own his 
fellow-man, still History, on all its pages, declares itself 
decidedly in favor of the fact. From the remotest ages, 
man has been owned and Slavery has existed, though 
names and forms may have differed. War seems to have 
been everywhere the origin of it — at least, in the earlier 
stages of human society — -just as war was then the sum 
total of all international intercourse. If, in civilized ages, 
war is the exception — or, at least, ought to be — and peace 
the rule, so, in barbarous periods, war is the rule and 
peace the exception. In these struggles of barbarous 
tribes, the prisoners of war were considered the property 
of the victors, who held this property by no common law, 
but by force. The victors held unlimited authority over 
their prisoners ; they could destroy or keep them, just as 
any other kind of j>roperty which had in some way become 
their own. In times or cases in which these live prisoners 
were of no use, they were killed ; and they were not killed 
only when they could serve the victors to some purpose, 
in which latter case they became slaves. This is the 
origin of Slavery in the times of barbarism of any nation 
or tribe — in the primitive phases of human society, where 
"Might is Right." The slave himself had his right to 
become free whenever there was not enough might or 
force to keep him longer in subjection. 

The word "slave" is of modern origin, as it first ap- 
peared in the long struggles between the Slavonic tribes 
of the East and the Western Europeans of Germanic 
origin, in which the former were generally overcome and 
subdued. 

Let us now see how it has been with Slavery in the na- 
tions and ages which have heretofore claimed some right 



. 



THE DEVELOPMENT. g3 

• 

to the title of civilization. There have, as yet, been but 
three great civilizations in the world : the old Asiatic, in 
its manifold branches, the Greco-Roman, and the Modern 
European, in which latter, also, this continent, as a great 
European colony, must be reckoned. In the two former 
civilizations, thai is, among the so-called ancient nations, 
Slavery was a conditio sine qua non — the fundamental 
condition of their system of social economy. It was the 
great characteristic of all ancient national compacts, and 
wherever we cast our eyes we find it. It came to them 
from the times of their barbarism, and was sustained and 
increased by many accidental causes in their history. It 
was a punishment for crime at one time, a payment for 
debt at another. It was the last disgrace to which the 
gambler was to submit among some nations ; it was the 
last means to shield the poor and weak from hunger and 
danger among others. 

But as these nations advanced in culture and civilization, 
the condition of the slaves became modified. They were 
still the principal laborers in all the branches of rising in- 
dustry (for " man" seemed not to have been made for 
labor, but only for war and the chase, and labor was only 
worthy of a slave, of a low-bred man, or, in some nations, 
of woman) ; but they were treated more gently, and ob- 
tained some rights and privileges. Though these nations 
never abolished Slavery entirely, still we know the friendly 
intercourse between master and slave, especially among 
the Greeks and the Romans. Thus, could the slave, among 
the Athenians, sue his master for cruel treatment. Beating 
a slave or killing him was reserved to the public authorities. 
A slave was allowed to gain and to own property, and to 
buy his liberty. Similar was the condition of the slave in 



84 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

the Roman Empire. Though the Justinian Code still 
granted to the master the vitce necisque potestas — the 
right to pummel and to slay — still the whole tenet had 
become obsolete in practice. The master was often satis- 
fied with a certain tithe or daily payment, as is the case 
in our own Southern cities, and he frequently promised his 
slave entire freedom as soon as he (the slave) had gathered 
a certain amount of property. There were many manu- 
missions for various other causes, such as extraordinary 
fidelity, or self-sacrificing services of any kind. Slavery 
must, indeed, have changed considerably in character, 
since even most skillful artists and men of superior edu- 
cation and refinement were foimd in its ranks, and great 
poets, generals, and statesmen were born in Slavery, or of 
slave parents. 

Modern civilization may be said to have begun with the 
appearance of the Germanic nations upon the theater of 
Europe, especially since the time of the overthrow of the 
Western Roman Empire. As long as they were in a 
barbarous or semi-civilized state, they obtained and held 
slaves in the same manner as other tribes and nations. 
During the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, even, there 
were, according to the best authorities, as many slaves in 
Germany as there were free men. Among the Anglo- 
Saxons, the per-centage of slaves was even still greater. 
But in the Slavery of the different modern nations 
that rose on the ruins of the old Roman Empire, similar 
changes took place, as in Greece and Rome. The sale of 
slaves to a foreign land was forbidden at an early time, 
and their general condition, mostly by reason of the in- 
fluence of the Christian Church, was gradually so much 
improved that it deserved even another name. The slave, 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 85 

during the so-called period of chivalry and feudalism, be- 
came a " serf," and Slavery became serfdom, not unlike 
the Roman colonate in the latter times of the empire. 
The serf was less owned as to his life than as to his serv- 
ice. Serfdom may thus be regarded as the great stepping- 
stone to freedom, just as, vice versa, the poor free man, in 
those feudal times, often sank to the state of serfdom. 
We do not mean by this that Slavery was changed into 
serfdom by a positive law. But that intermediate and 
mitigated condition of the Slave Avas none the less a real- 
ity. Thus, in England, " Villany" originally meant Slav- 
ery ; but it was a different thing in the middle ages. 

This, again, was similar in Rome and modern Europe. 
But there the Romans stopped. This milder form of 
Slavery continued as long as the empire itself, and even 
survived its fall. This was not so with the modern na- 
tions. There arose, in spite of old systems and old theo- 
ries, a new element, a new principle, with the advance of 
industry. It was " Honor to Labor," the characteristic 
element of the triumphant civilization of the modern 
nations. It is this principle which prolongs the lives of 
modern empires, and will finally bring about the civiliza- 
tion of the world. It is the want of this principle which 
brought decay upon the ancient nations before the foot of 
the barbarian had even yet trodden upon their soil. It is 
" Honor to Labor" which brought the man of labor at last 
to honor and freedom. Gradually his burdens grew less. 
Instead of all the labor of his whole day, the serf owed 
only part of his labor to his master, and then only certain 
services at certain seasons or in certain contingencies. 
What formerly was unrewarded service, gratuitously de- 
manded and offered, received some remuneration, though 



86 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

small it may have been. Such remunerations became, with 
the increased productiveness of labor and the increased 
value of the laborer himself, more adequate, until forced 
service became voluntary service, since the lord held up 
as high rewards or wages for labor as any other person. 
These are some of the ways in which serfdom passed 
away, though the extinction of its last forms required 
some legislative enactment. Such enactments were made 
in most nations of Europe during the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries ; and after many ages of struggles, 
the enslaved man became at last free. 

II.— NEGRO SLAVERY IX HISTORY. 

Negro Slavery is as old as any other Slavery, and its 
origin is war, as among any other tribes, nations, or races, 
be they white, yellow, or red. Prisoners of war were slain 
or made slaves, in the continent of Africa, long before 
European and American slave-traders appeared on its 
shores — long before Baeth, the learned traveler, saw 
black slaves owned by black masters — long before the 
interests of African industry "tied the Negroes to the 
plows and drove them like oxen." 

Among modern nations, the Spaniards were the first 
who made and owned African slaves. It was during 
their long wars with the Moors or Arabs, who, in their 
western stream, had spread over the whole northern part 
of Africa, even to the Pyrenean Peninsula, and had taken, 
for many centuries, a firm footing on Spanish soil, at the 
very dawn of modern European civilization. During these 
struggles and wars with the Mohammedan intruders of 
Asia, who once threatened to subdue all Europe, the Span- 
iards at last drove them away to Africa, and followed them 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 37 

in their turn to that continent. The wars continued there, 
and the so-called "Black Moors," the real Africans by birth 
and race, had often to expiate for the wrongs committed 
by the " Arabian Moors." 

But after the discovery of America, when the Industrial 
Period of Modem Civilization began, this kind of Slavery, 
namely, Negro Slavery, changed radically its character. 
While among all nations, in China even, and on all con- 
tinents, Slavery became milder, and was slowly passing 
from every country where there were but the faintest rays 
of civilization, Xegro Slavery took a new and powerful 
start. Let us view, a moment, the relative position of this 
fact in the history of the world's progress. 

The continent of Africa, the land of the Negro — if we 
take Xegro as the general term for those manifold tribes 
that inhabit Africa — was the last which appeared on the 
great theater of the civilization of the world. 

Asia had its time the first of all the continents. It was 
the cradle of human progress. It had grown, lived, and 
decayed, before our present nations and their civilization, 
their lands and continents even, were dreamed of. Their 
social life was, indeed, confined to one continent, and on 
this continent, again, the Chinese were separated by insur- 
mountable barriers from the land and civilization of the 
Hindoos, and these again from the civilization of Western 
Asia, which itself stretched only to the Mediterranean and 
its shores. Egypt was but a small part of Africa, and 
may as well be counted to Asia, and the Phenicians and 
Carthagenians pierced but little into the continent of 
Africa. The great Sahara was the Western and Southern 
limit of their empires. Thus the Asiatic colonies on the 
one side, and the young rising kingdoms of Media and 



88 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

Persia on the other, extended but little the area of this 
civilization, which remained truly Asiatic in origin, form, 
and character. 

Then came the Greco-Roman civilization. This, too, 
stretched, in spite of its extensive wars and glorious 
achievements, over only a comparatively small area, in 
which the shores of the Mediterranean and the adjacent 
lands were, and played the principal parts. We know, 
indeed, that the great empire of Rome, in its period of 
highest splendor, stretched over the totus orbis terrarum — 
over the whole world ; but we know, too, how large this 
" whole world" was — with no America, with almost no 
Africa, with little of Asia, and but the Southern part and 
some of the Northern territory of Europe ; in all, about 
one half the territory of the United States. 

But now came the Modern European civilization. Its 
area w r as at first- Europe. The new nations of Italy, 
Spain, France, Germany, and England arose and stretched 
their influence farther and farther over the then known 
countries. The " Straits of Gibraltar" were no longer 
honored as the termini mundi — the ends of the world. 
The seats of ancient civilization were sought again. The 
new world of America was discovered, conquered, and 
colonized. The islands of the South Sea became known. 
The sea route to India was found, and expedition followed 
expedition, until at last the whole earth was known, and 
the ancient seats of glory, as well as the heretofore un- 
known and untrodden soils, were drawn into this general 
and cosmopolitan life of the human family. Civilization 
was no longer confined to the shores of the Midland sea, 
but it was girded by all the shores of all the seas. "What 
were formerly the branches of the Midland sea became 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 89 

now the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and those island 
kingdoms of former times became empires of whole con- 
tinents. Such is Modern European civilization. 

The last continent that joined this universal cycle, and the 
last race that took active part in this universal life, were 
Africa and the African. The Northern shores of that 
continent, as Ave have seen, were but small belts of land, 
colonized by foreign races. The Arabs, even, knew com- 
paratively but little of the great heart of Africa. It was 
left to the most modern missionaries of Selfishness and 
Civilization, of Trade and Religion, of Curiosity and 
Science, to open some insight into the life of the main- 
land. Untouched by the rise and fall of empires and 
civilizations, it had followed an isolated life. But unlike 
the Australians, the Africans had preserved a physical 
strength, which caused surprise to civilized man ; and un- 
like the Indians of America, they had learned some agri- 
culture and some industry, had some state life, and had 
reached some degree of culture, the most, even, in those 
parts which were least exposed to the inroads of the 
modern colonizer and trader. And this is the land — this 
is the race which was to furnish the modern slaves. "While 
the Chinese were lingering along a half-civilized life, and 
the Hindoos were degenerating from their early culture ; 
while Western Asia decked her soils with the broken 
ruins of former glory, and the Greek, even, grew in body 
and mind unworthy of their noble forefathers ; while 
"Western Europe, under the influence of the Germanic 
race, was rising to be the lawgiver of the world, and sent 
its colonists to all the distant lands on a mission of regen- 
eration ; while the Red Man of the New World was bat- 
tled with until " he had to go toward the setting sun," 



90 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

Africa was destined to furnish the Slave of the day, the 
Slave of modern nations, the Slave par excellence, the 
Slave of the new, industrial, cosmopolitan, and Christian 
civilization ! 

This modern Negro Slavery is, therefore, indeed, a 
" peculiar institution." It arose not in times of barbarism, 
nor through accidental warfare of fighting tribes. It was, 
in this respect, unique, isolated, one by itself in time, 
place, and circumstances. When Slavery was everywhere 
passing away, this peculiar modern Negro Slavery first 
began. The slave was no longer the accidental captive in 
fierce battles, waged for glory, power, and fame, the 
delights of the ambitious barbarian. But in place of 
" glorious" wars, there came inglorious slave-hunts, for no 
other object than to make captives, to sell these captives 
as slaves to the civilized man of modern times, who was to 
take these slaves to distant lands and continents, to sell 
them again to others, where they, with all their descend- 
ants, are bound to labor and to toil during their lives. 
Slavery thus became industrial, like the whole world and 
its civilization, and lost all its romantic features of old. 
The continent last discovered was to serve as the principal 
theater for this. Slavery, and the race last found was to be 
the Slave race. 

The Spaniards introduced this Slavery very soon after 
the discovery of this Western World, whose virgin soil 
needed the labor of whole races. Hayti, the first free black 
land, was also the first slave land. Four months before 
the Mayflower arrived, slaves were already in Virginia, 
through the kind aid of Dutch sailors. Since that time, 
the merchants of the North and of the South, of the East 
and of the West, of this and of other lands and conti- 



THE DEVELOPMENT. gj 

nents, have been zealously competing with each other in 
this once honored traffic in human flesh, and whatever 
stain and curse are connected with it rest alike on this 
whole land and on the whole modern world. White men 
soon accustomed themselves to own black men. The 
Spaniards, French, Dutch, English, Americans, all and 
everybody, owned Negroes, and sold and bought them, 
and used them as their slaves. Laws of discipline, and 
systems to regulate the relations of master and slave, soon 
engaged the statesmen of all nations, and filled volumes of 
their codes. 

III.— XEGRO SLAVERY IX TIIE SOUTHERN STATES. 

Though modern Negro Slavery has some peculiarities, 
it is still Slavery in all its cardinal points. Some may say 
that, in our days, a distinct race is set aside to be slaves ; 
but this, even, can be found in other periods. The Greeks 
regarded the Scythian race as born for Slavery. Similar 
were the ideas of the old Germans in respect to the 
Sclavonians, and "barbarous" and "slave" were almost 
synonymous terms among the "civilized" nations of an- 
tiquity. These civilized nations, however, were sadly 
undeceived in after-times. If we thus would judge from 
the history of other kinds of Slavery to the future of our 
own, we should be forced to the conclusion that Neoro 
Slavery, too, must have its growth, its modifications, and 
its end. The peculiar features which distinguish onr 
Slavery from others, such as its mercenary origin, its 
industrial character, its growth in a period of great 
achievements in science and politics, which seemed to 
promise hope, and freedom, and happiness to the whole 
human race, these peculiar features would speak more in 



92 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

favor of modifications and a gradual abolition than in 
favor of a perpetual continuance. But why should we 
longer urge the argument of history ? The whole ques- 
tion has already been decided in principle, and to a great 
extent in fact, too. For all civilized nations — whatever 
their other sore spots may be — and half of our States 
have emancipated the former Negro Slaves — the whole 
modern civilized world has long acknowledged that it is 
unjust and inhuman to receive, with chains and fetters in 
our hands, a new race, neglected and isolated. To re- 
open the slave-trade, and put again a degrading stamp 
upon all Africa, to doom the whole race and continent to 
be a perpetual and entire Slave race and Slave continent, 
none but a rash, thoughtless, and misguided politician can 
think or hope. The people of the whole civilized world 
stand ready with the weapons of the world to repel any 
further outrage on a shamefully treated continent. The 
question is, therefore, not whether Africa shall be a slave 
continent, and the African a slave per se, nor even that all 
the Negroes transported into our land shall be slaves for- 
ever, but the issue is only whether those Negroes who 

ARE STILL OWNED AS SLAVES BY THE SOUTHERN STATES OF 

our Union shall be slaves forever, or pass gradually into 
freedom, as it happened in ninety-nine other parts of the 
civilized world where Slavery had formerly existed. The 
question as to. the continuance of Negro Slavery is, there- 
fore, strictly an American — and, indeed, a Southern — 
question only. 

Without solely relying, however, on our general argu- 
ment, we will now shortly review the different special 
pleas which are here raised in favor of the continuance of 
Negro Slavery in the South. 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 93 

IV.— THE PLEA OF THE CURSE. 

God, or rather Noah, cursed the descendants of Ham, 
the father of C a n a a n . W e read in Genesis ix. 25 : " And he 
said: Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be 
unto his brethren." There are a great many hermcneuti- 
cal difficulties connected with this text. " Noah drank of 
wine and was drunken. * * * And Noah awoke from 
his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto 
him." And then he cursed him. Now, this is quite natu- 
ral ; but it shows, as the venerable Thomas Scott says, 
" human imperfection in Noah" to drink wine ; and espe- 
cially, we may add, to drink too much of it, so as to get 
drunk. But, then — in all due reverence be it said — it 
would be quite natural, too, that Noah, awakening in or 
from his drunkenness, should use " imperfect" and intem- 
perate language. 

But, be this as it may, Ham showed a vile character in 
doing what, he did, and he deserved strong punishment. 
Yet, why not only Ham, but also his young and thought- 
less son, should be cursed, and not only he, but all the 
descendants of Ham — after the whole human race having 
been once most radically cursed in Adam — this remains a 
mystery. 

Nor is it certain that God heard Noah's curse. To 
conclude a posteriori, from the misery and oppression of 
Africa, that God did hear this curse, such an argument we 
may object to in many ways. The African is by no means 
the most cursed of this earth. There is the history of the 
Aztecs, of the Australians, of the Fejeeans, and of many 
isolated tribes and races toward the North and South 
poles, with whom the African can fairly be compared to 



94 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

his advantage. With the exception of modern Negro 
Slavery, he has surely endured less misery than millions 
of Chinese and Pariahs. His numbers compare well with 
most of the half-civilized races, especially if quality is not 
overlooked. The men in the interior of Africa are intel- 
ligent, too, and mild, says Livingstone ; and their peculi- 
arly modern curse has been passing away this long time. 

There are, too, some ethnological difficulties in this 
question. Some say the curse does not refer to the Afri- 
can Negroes at all. The Egyptians, the Phenicians, and 
the Carthaginians certainly were not of one and the same 
race with the Negroes. If Egypt is meant, there is cer- 
tainly as much misery on the Nile as in the Soudan, or on 
the Mountains of the Moon. 

But why should we endeavor to deduce our principles 
of social and physical action from the Book of the Soul- 
Life. The Good Book, we must repeat, has nothing to do 
with the outward forms of this life. And did it even 
curse the Negro, who among us Christians is ready to 
serve as the executor of this curse ? But, especially we, 
the great Republicans and Free men of the modern world 
— shall we be the hangmen of Liberty ? There is nowhere 
in the Good Book an express order given to us for that 
purpose, and there are but few who, on their own respon- 
sibility, would undertake the work on the ground of 
" drunken" Noah's curse ! 

Y.— THE PLEA OF RACE INFERIORITY. 

There is, at least, no longer any dispute among the 

lovers of Southern Negro Slavery, whether the Negro is a 

man or a monkey ; and the comparison of the Negro slaves 

to horses and alligators, or to any domestic or wild cattle, 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 95 

has become insipid, though it may come from the lips of 
clowns and punsters. The Xegro is now generally re- 
garded as a man, though an inferior man; and nobody will 
doubt that he is an inferior man if we compare him with 
the favored Caucasian of the present day. We will now 
examine somewhat the causes of this inferiority of races. 

When we look attentively into the history of mankind, 
our eyes meet three great facts — we may call them Facts 
of Difference. There is first, at all periods, in all places, 
and at all stages of human culture, a Difference among 
Individuals, though they may belong to the same race, or 
nation, or family, even. It is a physical and moral differ- 
ence as distinct as that of our faces. This is one of the 
great obstacles to those theories of communistic equality. 
No Spartan law of education, no Free-School system, no 
Forced education, no Democracy, no Religion, no Philan- 
thropy has ever yet succeeded to make men equal, be it 
physically, morally, or socially. 

This same difference appears when different individuals 
are connected and formed into associations, be they fami- 
lies, tribes, nations, or races. And this is the second fact. 
Just as the development of an individual depends upon 
his genetic structure, and upon the circumstances in which 
he is placed — or, in Comte's language, upon the character 
of the organism and of the medium which surrounds it — 
so do, also, associations of any kind depend upon their 
inward genetic power and upon the outward influences. 
Among these outward influences are the geographical and 
physical condition of the respective lands, the degree of 
isolation from other tribes and nations, or of communica- 
tion with them, the state of culture of these tribes at the 
time of contact, and the interest the more advanced soci- 



gg THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

eties take in lower and less advanced organisms. Should 
even the inward endowments of two tribes be the same, 
the difference of the circumstances that surround them 
misrht chancre their whole character. 

The third fact is, that associations, like individuals, are 
born, grow, decay, and die at different periods and have 
different durations of life. This fact depends directly 
upon the second. 

The workings of these three great facts have ever made 
the picture of the human world-life greatly variegated. 
Now nations arose, then they fell. One race was still 
lying in barbarism, while another was in the very zenith, 
of its civilization. This same civilized race became weak 
and decrepit, while the barbarous one rose to strength and 
power. One people grew to the greatest perfection ; an- 
other was arrested in the midst of its course. In the 
great history of the races and nations, we see, indeed, 
the same phenomena continually repeating themselves as 
in the history of the individuals of one and the same 
nation. But this is the necessary principle of all human 
development. Difference, indeed, is the element of all 
harmony. There have been, and there will ever be, dif- 
ferent individuals in the same nation destined to fulfill 
different tasks and duties. Some will grow earlier, faster, 
and higher ; others will ever remain in the lower walks 
of life. And exactly thus it is with the tribes, nations, 
and races of the whole human family. Different nations 
and different ages have different tasks to perform. Some 
will rise to magnificent dimensions, as their literature and 
art will bear witness in all generations to come. Such 
were the Greeks. Others will grow, too, but some gro- 
tesque temples and broken idols will be all that remains to 






THE DEVELOPMENT, 



97 



speak of their former glory. -Such , Mexicans. 

Some will remain barbarous during long periods, and be 
subjected and subdued at one time, but at length will 
gradually rise and set their feet upon the necks of their 
former victors. Such is the story of the Germans and 
the Romans. Some races will be interrupted in their 
long childhood ; a more civilized race will fall upon them, 
and whatever germ there may have been in them, the 
more powerful race will destroy it. Such we learn from 
the history of the conquest of America and the " sinking 
away" of the Indians. Some will be entirely neglected and 
isolated, until they are so degenerate that they are forever 
lost, like the Australians. Others, again, have once had 
some civilization, but have sunk gradually to a lower level 
until they were aided by more advanced nations to rise 
again to higher life, though this be often a cruel process. 
Such is the story of the Hindoos and the English. There 
have been tribes, and even cultivated ones, of whom now 
the names even have passed away. Such are the Goths. 
There are others whose countries were decked with pal- 
aces of unheard-of luxury and splendor, which now are 
deserts and wastes for " wolves to howl in." Look to 
Asia for examples ! Where are the proud Assyrians ? 
The Northern temperate zone, the largest habitable land, 
must naturally remain the principal theater or the central 
part of all human culture. But has this favored zone ever 
saved from decay the tribes and nations that poured in 
upon it ? Xo ; the principle of degeneracy depends upon 
no clime or sun ! It gnaws in the heart of the privileged 
Caucasian, who dwells near the center, as well as in the 
Patagonian's breast, who is hurled far off to the outer end 
of the radius. 



gg THE AME III CAN QUESTION. 

Such has been, heretofore, the strange history of the 
world — a continuous up and down, and still a progress. 
And is history now to stop ? Are there no more tribes, 
and nations, and races to come ? Do not Asia, Northern 
Europe, and Africa yet harbor millions who seem to be 
waiting for their time to play some more conspicuous part 
m the world's history? Or, are we blind to the new 
comers who, from year to year, vindicate with greater 
emphasis their right to be among the nations ? 

In the face of these historical facts, what place can we 
ascribe to the African ? He is among the latest comers. 
What prospect has he in this turmoil of human progress ? 
The people of Africa seem certainly not lost beyond 
the hope of recovery. They do not look like a decrepit, 
wasted, and ruined race. Nobody can look at the mus- 
cular strength of the Negro, and call him the offspring 
of a dying race. Let us view him in Africa ! They say 
he is inferior to us. Well ; but is it impossible to raise 
him to any higher degree of culture ? Who can affirm 
that, in the face of the most modern developments of our 
heroic travelers, Vogel, Barth, and Livingstone? There 
seems to be a difference in tribes among them, just as any- 
where else. But, on the whole, they are not a people of 
the lowest character. Though they were isolated so many 
centuries, they did not remain mere hunters. They 
reached, by themselves, some agriculture, some manufac- 
ture, some commerce, some civilization. Or, if we view 
them in their contact witli more civilized nations, they cer- 
tainly are not void of the power of imitating. In Africa 
itself they have manufactures of iron slave-chains — the 
best that are made, they say. And here, our own experi- 
ence does certainly not show that the Xegro, North or 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 99 

South, is incapable of progress. But how can we expect 
much from him in this our land ? In the South he is a slave, 
all direct means of progress being withheld from him. In 
the North he was emancipated rashly, cast upon a world 
whose ways he did not know, generally unaccustomed to 
managing his own business or owning property; in a word, 
untaught in the lessons of liberty. Besides, he was thrown 
among a crowd of Yankees, Dutchmen, Irishmen, and 
Germans, all of them descendants of a race long civil- 
zed, all eager after gain, and all skillful in obtaining it. 
How disadvantageous was the Negro's position here! 
How long, indeed, will and must it take him to rise to a 
level with us, who have the start of him by centuries of 
culture ? Perhaps he will never reach us. But, that he 
is capable of some degree of civilization, who can deny, 
whether he may look upon the toils and feasts of the planta- 
tion, or upon the schools and huts of the North ? And 
are there not many Negroes who have reached a higher 
intellectual standing in our community than ever can be 
reached by many of our own native or foreign population 
of Caucasian blood ? No impartial man can look at the 
Negro here, and declare him incapable by nature of any 
progress. The Negro is a progressive being — a man, and 
not a brute. 

But, suppose he can never reach the degree of the civil- 
ization of the Caucasian ! Suppose he will ever remain as 
inferior to him as he now is ! How can we arrive, from 
the fact of relative inferiority, at the necessity of Slavery ? 
By what train of logic can we come to the conclusion that 
inferior races must be made slaves, and not only this — for 
Slavery may at first be best for them if we abstract from the 
manner of their coming here — but that they must be kept 



100 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

slaves in perpetuum? Must, then, all inferior races, and 
nations, and tribes be likewise made slaves ? Well, then, 
we have plenty on our hands, and filibustering will not 
cease until all Mexico, all China, all the Indies, all Pata- 
gonia, all Africa, all Asia, and a good part of Europe is 
enslaved ! For such inferior tribes and nations are found 
everywhere — a little higher, a little lower. Where is the 
line beyond which there is no more freedom, but only eter- 
nal Slavery ? 

No, we Americans, a small portion of the civilized people 
of this world, and a portion of this small portion again, 
all lovers of liberty, we, the nation of the "happy and the 
free" above others, we can not oppose effectually the ways 
of the world, the voice of civilization, the lessons of His- 
tory. The Negro is inferior, at least now ; he may ever 
be so ; but he is not therefore necessarily to be a slave, or, 
rather, the slave of the American cotton-field, forever, and 
with all his descendants ! 

VI.— THE PLEA OF PHILANTHROPY. 
No man will ever plead philanthropy for the slave-trade. 
A heartless trader in human flesh presents himself, with 
an appropriate vessel, on the coast of Africa. There he 
meets a misled, barbarous chief. Excitement for gain 
prompts them both — the trader and the chief— to make a 
bargain. The trader lays down a heap <>t* tin- good things 
of this world, Avhich flatters the senses of the savage. 
The savage chief, in his turn, arranges a man-hunt, catches 
as many descendants of his race as he can get, and gives 
those who are alive and well to the trader in fulfillment of 
his bargain. The trader packs them, like so many beasts, 
into the infected hull of the slave-ship, carries them to a 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 101 

foreign land, and there again are sold as many as are 
alive after this second process. The man, who first was 
free, is then a slave, owned by another race, in another 
land, forever. Is that philanthropy? Is that love of 
mankind ? 

But let us abstract from the dark origin of Negro 
Slavery. Let us forget the millions who were transported 
before the foundation of our Free Republic and after it ! 
Let us forget the demoralization which civilized man has 
thus thrown upon the newest comer among the races! 
Let us forget the demoralization which he has, to some 
degree, unconsciously loaded upon himself! Let us forget 
Humanity! Let us take Slavery as it is in our own 
Southern States ! Suppose even the slave-ship, with all its 
horrors, is the messenger of philanthropy ; suppose it was 
and is philanthropy to fetch the Negro from his native 
land, and make him a slave — is it philanthropy to keep 
him a slave after he has once quitted the ship, entered our 
land, unlearned his barbarism, taken upon himself the 
work of civilized man, and imitated his ways? Is it 
philanthropy to keep him down, or to destroy any little 
ray of progress that may indirectly strike the poor wretch ? 
No, Philanthropy, above all, would teach us — after such 
great wrongs on our side and such favorable experiences 
on the other — to help the poor man, to give him the 
means of culture, to teach him the rudiments of civilized 
life, and to try, at least, like all nations heretofore, to 
make him an intelligent slave, whether this process may 
lead him to freedom or whether it may never break the 
chains of bondage. To treat him as a man, as an anthro- 
pos, Philanthropy certainly must demand of a man. 



102 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

YII.— THE PLEA OF NECESSITY. 

But who will work our cotton-fields ? We now abstract 
from all philanthropy or humanity ! Who will work under 
our burning sun ? Agassiz says the white man can as well 
as the black man,, or he may, we think, at least accustom 
himself to it. And Livingstone writes from Africa even : 
" I have never had a day of illness since my return. We 
find, too, that, so far from Europeans being unable to 
work in a hot climate, it is the want of work that kills 
them. The Portuguese all know that as long as they are 
moving about, they enjoy good health ; but let them settle 
down and smoke all day, and drink brandy, then — not a 
word about brandy in the fever that follows — the blame is 
all put on the climate." The Germans, too, seem to get 
along, in every kind of thrift, very comfortably in Texas. 

But suppose, even, that we need the Negro — and we, 
too, think we do — would Ave lose him by raising him to 
liberty? Not at all. If we teach him the ways of self- 
reliance and freedom, and treat him as other laborers, he 
will never leave what has become to him his native ooun- 
try. He will not come North, for he will prefer the 
warmer sun of the South, better adapted to his nature, 
and prefer the soil where he has learned to be free. He will 
prefer the work which he has learned to do, and the 
society which surrounded and aided him during his re- 
generation. For, that he can be grateful and is capable 
of patriotism the war of the Revolution bears ample tes- 
timony. Nor could he long to go back to Africa, which, 
indeed, has become to him a strange land. As little would 
he leave as the descendant of the European leaves his 
adopted fatherland to recross the ocean and settle in the 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 10 3 

old world, which now is as new to him as the Western 
world was to his ancestors. If the Negro were free, he 
would voluntarily stay here, where often force alone now 
keeps him. lie would perform the lower duties of social 
life for generations to come, and in these lower walks he 
would remain, should he be incapable of ever competing 
with the old Caucasians. Surely, we want the Negro, 
and we shall have him, whether Free or Slave. 

Yin.— THE PLEA OF SELF-INTEREST. 

"We find that everywhere in history where emancipation 
was gradually prepared and finally accomplished, the 
estates of the masters became many times more valuable 
than before. Examples are frequently given by the many 
writers on Slave and Free labor. The Count of Beexs- 
tokff is said to have lost one hundred thousand dollars by 
emancipation ; but his annual income from his estates rose 
from three thousand to twenty-seven thousand dollars. 

The Slave, as long as he works for his master, will gen- 
erally be as lazy as the circumstances and the lash will 
permit. From this principle there arose those manifold 
computations of the economists and the various estimates 
of the comparative cost of Free and of Slave labor. But 
on the whole, they all agree that Slave labor is the more 
expensive of the two. And this is just what the South 
needs. Make the Xegro more intelligent and skillful, and 
give him the hope of his future emancipation, then will his 
ambition soon tell upon the estates of the master. During 
this gradual process of emancipation, the master can only 
be the gainer. 

Tuckee thinks that Nature seems to demand a certain 
ratio of the population of a country to its square miles 



104 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

before a master can emancipate bis slaves with gain to 
himself. To apply the rule of an arithmetical means to a 
dozen examples of emancipation is rather venturesome. 
The principal and decisive condition of the master's pre- 
serving his self-interest in emancipation, is that it be 
gradual. In such a case it has never brought loss on any 
master in any example from history, whatever the above- 
mentioned ratio may have been. 

IX.— THE PLEA OF THE CONSTITUTION. 
We have here the last of the pleas generally heard in 
favor of the continuance of Negro Slavery in our Southern 
States. The plea of the Constitution ! And, indeed, the 
Constitution alone can and does, in our eyes, recognize 
Slavery ! But there it stands, that noble instrument, with 
the name " slave" carefully avoided. There stands at its 
side another cherished document — the Declaration of In- 
dependence — with its startling principle : " That all men 
are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights ; and that among these are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Neither of 
these, our Primitive Laws, stamp the Negro to be a lower 
being than a man. This man may be your property, slave- 
holder ! But — aside from any humanity — you still do not 
own him as you do " your horse or your ass." You know 
that you indirectly vote for him ; you know that you can 
not kill him when he gets old, as you do " your horse or 
your ass !" You know that there is some little difference 
between owning him and owning "any other cattle!" 
You can not make him out a beast or a brute : not from 
the Constitution, not from any law of man, be it written 
or onlv secretlv engraved in the human breast. You know 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 105 

that the Negro is a man! for this is, after all, the ques- 
tion. Man or Beast — this is the final issue ! But our ooble 
Constitution, in letter and spirit, abhors an interpretation 
which ambitious politicians would like to force upon it. 
Nol "beast," or "brute," or "cattle," not even "slave," 
is the term given to the Negro ! "Bound to service" is 
all thai expresses the relation of slave and master. 

Wherever provisions are made respecting slaves, they 
are so worded as not to stigmatize them as even a distinct 
caste or class. In Art. I., Sec. 2, persons " bound to serv- 
ice for a term of years" are classed with the free persons ; 
and " all other persons" — meaning, in the language of the 
Constitution, "persons bound to service" without any 
qualification of time, or, in common language, slaves — are 
put on the same footing as the " Indians not taxed." Art. 
IV., Sec. 2, from which the Fugitive Slave Law is derived, 
is a provision against " persons held to service or labor in 
one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another," 
and comprises obviously all persons, black or white, held 
to service for any period of time, however short or long. 
This provision includes slaves, but it is not made for them 
alone. The Constitution recognizes Slavery, to be sure, 
but not as a general, national, and hereditary institution, 
authorized by the laws of the United States as such, but 
as a local relation between master and slave, calling it 
expressly " service or labor in one State, under the laws 
thereof:' 

But let us not with conscious willfulness misunderstand 
and distort the suggestions, hopes, wishes, and intentions 
of those "noble men who framed our Constitution and 
founded our Union," lest their desecrated memory pervert 
and crush us. 



206 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

X.— REQUISITES FOR A TRULY PHILANTHROPIC 
EMANCIPATION. 

Though our minds may now have given up all prejudices, 
and we may look with impartial eyes upon the fact of our 
Negro Slavery and its gradual emancipation as taught by 
history, still there are yet heavy obstacles in our way. 
May we be allowed to state what, in our opinion, are the 
primary requisites of a peaceful solution of this difficult 
question ? 

i. — DELICACY. 

Negro Slavery exists only in some of our States. No 
earthly power can force it again on the Free States or on 
the world. Its local character is therefore a reality. But 
just on account of this local character of Slavery, the 
greater delicacy is needed. If Negro Slavery still ex- 
isted in all our States, and under similar circumstances, no 
party or section could be charged with ignorance of facts 
or intentional distortions and selfish interests. It would 
then be regarded as a common good, or as a common evil, 
or as a common necessity, and be discussed freely, like any 
other question, independent of locality. It Mould not 
rouse a whole section against another, and divide our 
country geographically as it does politically. It would be 
an easier work to get rid of a common enemy, and would 
need less care and delicacy in words and actions. 

England was in a very different position from what 
we are. Slavery existed in one of her distant colonies or 
dependencies, which was but a small part of her empire. 
But our Slavery exists in our very midst; in sixteen 
co-equal States of our confederate republic. It is thus 
cherished in a considerable portion of our land, and 



THE DEVELOPMENT. jq^ 

it therefore needs greal delicacy of treatment, ai 
we give up the idea of regarding ourselves as equal mem- 
bers of the same Union, and citizens of the same nation. 

II. — POLITICAL NON-INTERFERED E WITH THE SOUTH. 

There is no doubt thai the present Slave States once 
knew what a dubious guest they harbored in the Negro 
Slave. They had men as liberal, as wise, as noble, and as 
energetic as the men of the Xorth, in whose words and 
teachings the policy best for their country was expressed, 
distinctly and unmistakably. Again and again did they 
publicly denounce Slavery, in language strong and de- 
cided : but the spirit of which could not be misinterpreted 
or suspected. They even contrived ways and means to 
gradually get rid of Slavery, and they had associations for 
that purpose. 

The Southern States were fairly on their way toward a 
final abolition, just as the Northern. The latter were, 
however, their predecessors in this work from many other 
reasons than mere philanthropy. Climate, the character of 
their products, and immigration, made, from the wry 
beginning, the negro slave less desirable and less neces- 
sary there than in the South. Still, the Southern States, 
too, thought of emancipation, though they were naturally 
to come last, and their work was to be slower, in the same 
degree that their peculiar geographical position, and their 
climate, soil, and production had allotted to them a larger 
number of slaves. 

We will quote here some well-known passages from 
Southern writers, to see what the state of feeling on this 
subject was as late as 1832. Said the elder Ritchie, in 
the Richmond JEhquirer: "Means sure but gradual, sys- 



IQg THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

tematic but discreet, ought to be adopted for reducing the 
mass of evil which is pressing upon the South, and will 
still more press upon her, the longer it is put off." He 
was referring to Xegro Slavery. Faulxxee, too, said, at 
that time, in the Virginia House of Delegates : " Sir, I am 
gratified to perceive that no gentleman has yet risen in 
this Hall, the avowed advocate of Slavery. The day has 
gone by when such a voice could be listened to with 
patience, or even with forbearance." This was in 1832. 
Why did all these free words about "withering and 
blasting effects of Slavery" stop soon afterward ? It can 
be proved with almost mathematical certainty what share 
the rash interference of Abolitionism had in delaying the 
work of the Free labor movement in the South. Let us 
here quote a memorable passage from Daxiel Webster, 
whose clear-sightedness none will question. Referring to 
that same matter, he said : 

"Let any gentleman who doubts of that recur to the debates in the 
Virginia House of Delegates, in 1832, and he will see with what free- 
dom a proposition made by Mr. Randolph for the gradual abolition of 
Slavery was discussed in that body. Every one spoke of Slavery as he 
thought ; very ignominious and disparaging names and epithets were 
applied to it. The debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, 
I believe, were all published. They were read by every colored man 
who could read, and to those who could not read, those debates were 
read by others. At that time Virginia was not unwilling nor afraid 
to discuss this question, and to let that part of her population know 
as much of the discussion as they could learn. That was in L832. As 
has been said by the honorable member from South Carolina. 
Abolition societies commenced their course of action in 1835. It is 
said—] know how true it may be— that they sent incendiary 

publications into the Slave States; at any event, they attempted to 
ar-.nse, and did . • >ry strong feeling; in other words, they 

■ !■• ited greal agitation in the North against Southern Slavery. Veil, 
what was the resuU ? The bonds of the slaves were bound more 
firmly than before ; their rivets were more strongly fastened. Public 
opinion, which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited against Slavery, 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 109 

and was opening out for the discussion of the question, drew back and 
shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether anybody in Vir- 
ginia can now talk as Mr. Rakdolph, Governor McDowell, and others 
talked, openly, and sent their remarks to the press, in 1832 ? We all 
know the fact, and we all know the cause ; and everything that this 
agitating people have done has been, not to enlarge, but to restrain, 
not to set free, but to bind faster the slave population of the South." 

There can not be any doubl that Northern Abolitionism 
was one of the causes of the change of feeling in the 
South. 

Abolition of Slavery can never be effected by a hostile 
political party in States in which there is no Slavery. For 
the South will never, can never, be forced into abolition. 
We abolished our Slavery in the North without any inter- 
ference on the part of the South or the West, and the 
same privileges must be granted to the other States. 
Abolition of Slavery was heretofore effected by the action 
of separate States, and they consulted neither in regard to 
time nor manner with any other State. Each State acted 
by itself, and excluded all interference of others. They 
may have been influenced by the example of other States 
or nations, still they surely excluded all political interfer- 
ence either from the Federal Government or from single 
States. And such— State by State — will be the course 
of emancipation until the whole work is accomplished. 
The question of abolition ought, therefore, never to 
enter the mind of any Northern man as far as he is a 
member of a political party. In the abstract, everybody 
has a right to his opinion, but a political party is no agent 
for abstract schemes and wishes, but for such meastjk 
are best fitted for immediate political action. In belong- 
ing to a party, a man does not thereby become a traitor to 
his opinion; he only subscribes to the rationality and 



120 THE AMEEICAX QUESTION. 

justice of certain political measures proposed. But abo- 
lition of Slavery can never appear as such a measure on 
the programme of any political party in the Xorth. 

Besides the impracticability of such an undertaking, it 
is against the Constitution, to which a political party, as a 
medium of political action, owes strict adherence. If we 
are dissatisfied with the Constitution, we ought not to 
cover our intention with false issues, but we ought openly 
to confess our plans, and employ all means prescribed for 
changes or amendments in that instrument. 

Abolition of Slavery, as a political measure, belongs 
chiefly to the South. There are still, as in former times, 
fearless champions of freedom there to start the work 
again, and the initiative comes with better grace from 
their own men. The South will recover from its excite- 
ment. This very process of secession will be the means 
of opening its eyes again to the righteous claims of Free- 
dom. There are now, in several Slave States, parties 
which dare to attack Slavery in some shape or other, and 
in some States their final object, abolition, is openly 
avowed. There, agitation is proper. It may have been 
silenced in these days of over-excitement. But this state 
can not last long. Times of prudence and peace will re- 
turn, and the former work, though now interrupted, wiH 
be taken up again with renewed vigor. 

Thus delicacy, reason, and the Constitution oppose alike 
all political interference of the Xorth with the question of 
abolition in the South. 

III. PRUDENCE. 

English emancipation, as we have above stated, can not 
serve as a model for us. But we have a warning example 



THE DEVELOPMENT. HI 

nearer at hand, in the abolition of Slavery in our own 
Northern States. 

Though the lands, in the care of a numerous crowd of 
skillful and energetic colonists, did not sutler so much as 
in the West Indies, still the small minority of colored 
people found themselves in a condition \ cry similar to 
that of the Negroes of the English colonies. Suddenly 
they passed from Slavery to a state in which they had to 
unlearn, or learn otherwise, what ;is slaves they had learned. 
They were like helpless children. They wandered around 
uncared for and homeless; they struggled with dis- 
eases, and lived, and still live, in poverty, being often 
in want of the necessaries of life. Liberty was, to many, 
a curse. It will take much more time, and cost many 
more sacrifices, before they are in a condition to profit by 
the advantages of freedom. Thence arose those facts 
which Calhoun used in his Defense of North American 
Slavery, addressed to Lord Aberdeen, though he mistook 
entirely the cause, for it is the manner of emancipation 
only which did the injury. 

The only beneficial and satisfactory way of emancipation 
is the slow and gradual change and reform of the condition 
of the slave. We must instruct him in the elements of 
common and practical knowledge. This is the fundamental 
reform. Then we must, in the language of .Mr. Caret, 
accustom him " to possess and manage property" — reforms 
already partially introduced into some of our Slave States. 
The slave may be hired out by tin- master, as in sonic of 
our Southern cities. The field-slave may be allowed to 
cultivate, under the master's control, some acres of land 
for himself. As in Rome, the slave may be allowed to 
buy his liberty — reforms already applied to some extent. 



112 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

Other aids in this slow work of emancipation might be 
suggested in different places ; for true and beneficial 
emancipation can only be partial, local, individual, 
and gradual. We can not do it by one stroke ! It is 
a complicated work, to which we all may lend our feeble 
hands. Some slaves would thus soon be made free ; others 
would have to serve a longer apprentice shij) for liberty. 
The Abolitionists and philanthropic men of all creeds and 
platforms may hasten on this work of love. They are 
liberal ; let them, therefore, send their money to procure 
liberty for those who are deemed to deserve it. Let them 
then take care of them, and supply whatever the new-born 
freeman may afterward need. Let the Colonization So- 
ciety, too, be aided in its work. Help to send to Africa 
those civilized Xegroes who wish to aid their race in its 
progress ! Let all who know new remedies and plans of 
peace be listened to, and all who can materially help, send 
their portions; while the slaveholding States themselves 
concert and advise and reform, until at last, this voluntary 
emancipation being nearly completed, State after State 
may seal, by a legal enactment, the fact of the ISTegro's 
freedom ! 

Should, then, any financial consideration delay the work 
of Humanity, or in any way thwart its purposes, there 
will be millions in the Union who will readily adopt our 
reading of Webster's language when he says : 

"There have been received into the treasury of the 
United States eighty millions of dollars, the proceeds of the 
sales of the public lands ceded by Virginia. If the residue 
should be sold at the same rate, the whole aggregate will 
exceed two hundred millions of dollars. If Virginia and 
the South see fit to adopt any proposition to relieve them- 



THE DEVELOPMENT. U3 

selves from '■Slavery,'' they have my free consent that the 
government shall pay them any sum of money out of its 
proceeds which may be adequate to the purpose." 

XL— ACTUAL WOKK ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED IX OUR 
OWN LAND. 

On reading the wholesale denunciations which are so 
liberally thrown upon our republic, both by foreign and 
native writers and orators, it would, at first, seem as if our 
land and people had not yet done anything at all toward 
"gradual" abolition of Slavery. 

Says G. F. Kolb, in his new work, " The Statistics of 
the World:" "There is no reason why we should accuse 
the American republic for the existence of Slavery; for 
Negro Slavery is a relic from the time when the land was 
under a monarchical government. But still, the guilt of 
not having limited that baneful institution, which is a dis- 
grace to humanity, and of not having worked toward its 
gradual abolition, rests heavily on the modern republicans 
of America." 

"Done nothing toward gradual abolition of Slavery!" 
We arc accustomed to such language from the lips of 
high-souled theorizers, but we hardly expected to find it 
on the scientific pages of the " cool and calculating" sta- 
tistician. Still, such seems to be the general language of 
the present day, to be mechanically repeated by each new 
self-appointed judge hi the High Court of Universal 
Justice. 

Has our national development really been so exceptional 
as to deserve the maledictions of the whole civilized 
world ? Have we, indeed, not progressed at all toward 
greater freedom ? Have we been steadily descending in 



214 TnE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

the scale of civilization ? Are we an anomaly in the his- 
tory of modern nations ? Or, can we show the same 
slow and gradual work of emancipation as they? We 
confess that our country might have done more if it had 
been more prudent and less selfish. But we have done 
sometJiing, and this something is worthy of the consid- 
eration of the world, before our final judgment is pro- 
nounced. 

Let us look into our actual history ! 

I. PROIIIBITIOX OF THE SLAVE-TEADE. 

The United States was the first nation to abolish the 
slave-trade. We take from the learned charge of Judge 
James M. Wayxe the following data: 

"The first act was passed on the 22d of March. 1794, when General 
Washington was President. It was intended to prevent any citizen or 
resident of the United States from equipping vessels within the United 
States, to carry on trade or traffic in slaves, to any foreign country. 
(Brig Triphenia vs. Harrison, W. C. C, 522.) That is, though slaves 
might he brought into the United States until the year 1808, in vessels 
fitted out in our ports for that purpose, they could not he carried by 
our citizens or residents in the United States in such vessels, into any 
foreign country. 

" The next act of Congress was passed on the 2d March, 1807, when 
Mr. Jefferson was President. The act of 1807 begins by subjecting 
any vessel to forfeiture which shall be found in any river, bay, or har- 
bor, or on the high seas, within the jurisdictional limits of the United 
States, <>r which may be hovering on the coast, having on board any 
negro, mulatto, or person of color, for the purpose of selling them as 
slaves, or with the intent to land them in any port or place within the 
United States. 

"The act of 1818 prohibits the importation of negroes altogether 
into the United States, from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, 
without excluding the return to it of such slaves as might leave the 
United States ;is servants of their owners, comprehending such as have 
been employed as seamen on a foreign voyage. 

"The act of 1819 authorizes the President, in a more particular 
manner than had been done before, to use the naval force for the 
prevention of the slave-trade, points out the circumstances and the 



TIIE DEVELOPMENT. H5 

localities in which seizures of vessels may be made, directs the dis- 
tribution of the proceeds of them aftei condemnation, requires that 

negroes found on board of them shall be delivered to the marshal, 
what that officer's duty tbt'ii is, and again commands that the 
officer making the seizure shall take into his custody every persoD 
found on board, being of the crew or officers of the vessels seized, 
and that they are to be turned over to the civil authority for prosecu- 
tion. 

" This brings us to the last act upon the subject, that of the 15th 
May, 1820. It denounces any citizen of the United States as a 
pirate, and that he shall suffer death, who shall become one of the 
crew or ship's company of any foreign [slave] ship ; and that any per- 
son whatever becomes a pirate, and shall suffer death, who shall be- 
come one of the crew or ship's company of any vessel owned, in the 
whole or in part, or which shall be navigated for or in behalf of 
any citizen of the United States, or who shall land from such ves- 
sel on any foreign shore, and shall seize any negro or mulatto not 
held to service or labor by the laws of either of the States or Terri- 
tories of the United States, with intent to make such negro or mulatto 
a slave, or who shall decoy, or forcibly bring or carry, or who shall 
receive en board of such ship, any negro or mulatto with intent to 
make them slaves. 

"In the year 1823, the House of Representatives of Congress 
adopted a resolution to request the President to prosecute, from time 
to time, negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and 
of America, for the effectual abolition of the African slave-trade, and its 
ultimate denunciation as piracy under the laws of nations, by the con- 
sent of the civilized world. 

■ All the nations of Europe, as well as of America, have followed 
in the same legislation, and the object of the resolution of 1823 seems 
to be near its accomplishment. 

"Upon three occasions since 1824, the subject has been under the 
consideration of Congress, and at each time has a determination been 
fully expressed to maintain the principles that have been incorporated 
into the legislation of the country. 

There were several occasions, before and after these 
legal enactments, when the Congress of the United States 
expressed their abhorrence of the slave-trade. And this 
was and is a sentiment common to the great majority of 
people both North and South. 



116 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 
II. ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 

At the beginning of our existence as an independent 
nation, in 1776, there were slaves in each of the thirteen 
original States. 

TABLE XIX. NUMBER OF SLAVES IN 1776. 

[Census Report of 1850.] 
States. Number of Slaves. 

Massachusetts . . 3,500 

Rhode Island 4,373 

Connecticut 6,000 

New Hampshire 629 

New York 15,000 

New Jersey 7,600 

Pennsylvania. 10,000 

Delaware 9,000 

Maryland 80,000 

Virginia 165.000 

North Carolina 75,000 

South Carolina 110,000 

Georgia 16,000 

Total 502,132 

Other accounts give the number at 479,000. 

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New 
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, all, at an early date, 
abolished Slavery within their jurisdiction. 

Then, out of territory ceded to the United States by 
Virginia — the State which had at that time by far the 
greatest number of slaves, about one third of the total 
slave population of the Union, — we have formed the fol- 
lowing States : 



Kentucky 1792 (Slave) 

Ohio 1802 (Free) 

Indiana 1816 ( " ) 

Illinois 1818 ( " ) 



Michigan 1837 (Free) 

And from Michigan — 

Iowa 1846 ( " ) 

Wisconsin 1818 ( " ) 



Thus, six of the thirteen original States have abolished 
Slavery within their territories, and six new Free States 
were formed from the territory of the Slave State of 
Virginia. 



THE DEVELOPMENT. Hf 

Vermont, too, was formed from New York in 1791, and 
Maine from Massachusetts in 1820. California, Minnesota, 
Oregon, and Kansas are new Free States. 

To be sure, seven of the original thirteen States have 
not yet abolished Slavery, and nine new Slave States have 
been added. 

But nobody can deny that we have done something 
"toward the gradual abolition of Slavery." For in 1776 
we had nothing but Slave States, and now the majority of 
the States are Free. 

Or, let ns take the oldest and the newest Census of the 
United States, and compare the increase of the Free with 
that of the Slave. 

Vear. Free. Slaves. 

1790 3,231,900 697,800 

1850 19,987,500 3,204,300 

The increase of the Free is thus 518 per cent., while 
that of the Slave is only 359 per cent. Freedom has thus 
increased at a greater ratio than Slavery, should we even 
take the above number unconditionally. 

" But," says Mr. Kolb, " the proportion is reverse in the 
South ; the slaveholders have succeeded there in bringing 
about an enormous increase of these unfortunates." To 
this we must decidedly object. The increase of the slave 
population is the greatest argument for the South. For 
it proves, on the whole, the good treatment of the slaves 
by their Southern masters. It sIioavs, indeed — as we have 
had occasion to remark — the greater humanity of the 
Southerners when compared with other masters. But, 
however that may be, this can never be used as an argu- 
ment against the South. 

The work of emancipation, or gradual abolition, has 



llg THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

been steadily going on since the very beginning of our 
national existence. It commenced East and North, and 
gradually pressed farther toward the South and West. Nor 
did it halt at the boundaries of the present Slave States. 
It has already entered them, and is progressing there in spite 
of political and financial interruptions and disturbances. 

III. THE SPREADING OF THE WHITE POPULATION. 

The present border Slave States are now the principal 
theater of action in this work of Freedom. We will first 
give a few tables showing the relation of the White to the 
Slave Population, and the increase of the former over the 
latter. 

TABLE XX. POPULATION OF THE BORDER STATES IN 1850. 

[From the United States Census.] 

States. Whites. Free Col'd. Slaves. Total Col'd. Total Pop. 

Delaware 71,100 18,000 2,200 20,200 91,500 

Maryland 417,900 74.700 90,300 165,000 583,000 

Virginia 894,800 54,300 472,500 526,800 1,421,600 

Kentucky 761,413 10,000 210,900 220,900 982,400 

Missouri .... 592,004 2,600 87,400 90,000 682,000 



2,737,217 159,600 863,300 1,022,900 3,260,500 
TABLE XXI. PROPORTION OF WHITE TO TOTAL POPULATION 

in 1850. (in fer cents.) 

States. 1790. 1S00. 1310. Is20. 1830. 1840. 1S50. 

Delaware 78.36 77.56 76.18 75.99 75.05 75.00 77.75 

Maryland 65.26 63.34 61.78 63.88 65.12 67.70 71.68 

Virginia : 59.08 58.43 56.59 56.61 57.31 59.76 62.94 

Kentucky 83.66 81.41 79.76 77.02 75.27 75.69 77.50 

Missouri." — — 82.64 84.08 81.73 84.41 86.79 

TABLE XXII. PROPORTION OF FREE COLORED TO TOTAL 

POPULATION. (iN PEE CENTS.) 

States. 1790. 1S00. 1S10. 1820. 1S30. 1840. 1S50. 

Delaware 6.60 12.86 18.08 17.81 20.66 21.66 19.75 

Maryland 2.51 5.73 8.92 9.75 11.84 13.21 12.82 

Virginia 1.71 2.29 3.14 3.48 3.91 4.02 3.82 

Kentucky 0.15 0.33 0.42 0.52 0.71 0.92 1.02 

Missouri — — 2.91 0.56 0.41 0.41 0.38 



THE DEVELOPMENT. H9 

TABLE XXIII. — .MAM M ITTK I) AND FUGITIVE SLATES IX 1850. 

BORDER STATES. 

States. Slaves. Manumitted. Fugitives. 

Delaware 2.200 277 20 

Maryland 90.300 493 279 

Virginia 472,600 218 83 

Kentucky 210.900 152 90 

Missouri 87,000 50 GO 



863,300 1,190 544 

These four tables are intimately connected with each 
other. 

The proportion of the White population had in 1850 
risen, in per cent., in — 



Delaware. 


Maryland. 


Virginia. 


Kentucky. 


Missouri. 


Since 1S20. 


Since 1810. 


Since 1810. 


Since 1830. 


Since 1810. 


1.74 


9.90 


6.45 


2.23 


4.15 



The proportion of Free Colored persons had in 1850 
risen, in per cent., in — 

Delaware. Maryland. Virginia. Kentucky. Missouri. 

13.15 10.31 2.11 0.87 2.53 (dec.) 

Thus, the proportion of the White and Free Colored pop- 
ulation was steadily increasing in the Border States ; or, 
in other words, the Border Slave States are thus slowly and 
peacefully being transformed into Free States, and in some 
of them the work of Freedom is almost completed. The 
relative decrease of the proportion of the Free Colored 
population of Missouri is but a seeming exception. It 
was the effect of the extraordinary immigration of whites. 
Missouri rose in forty years, from the 22d to the 13th place 
among the States, Slave and Free. 

The more extreme Southern States have as yet been less 
affected by the invigorating breath of Freedom which 
blows from the North. But, still, Tennessee seems to 
follow somewhat in the track of Kentucky, and Xorth 
Carolina in that of Virginia, while Louisiana, by reason of 



120 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

its geographical position, its river, and its intimate con- 
nection with the Northwest, presents about the same 
features as the border Slave States. 

POPULATION OF LOUISIANA IN 1850. 
Whites. Free Colored. Slaves. Total Colored. Total Pop. 
255,400 17,400 244,800 262,200 517,700 

PROPORTION OF WHITE TO TOTAL POPULATION. (iN PER CENTS.) 

1810. 1320. 1830. 1S40. 1850. 

44.82 47.83 41.46 44.96 49.35 

PROPORTION OF FREE COLORED TO TOTAL POPULATION. 



1810. 


1820. 


1S30. 


1840. 


1350. 


9.91 


7.15 


7.74 


7.24 


3.37 



MAUMITTED AND FUGITIVE SLAVES. 
Slaves. Manumitted. Fugitives. 

244,800 159 90 

Thus the proportion of the white population in Louisi- 
ana increased 7.89 per cent. The cause of the decrease in 
the proportion of the colored population is, as in the case 
of Missouri, due to the extraordinary immigration of 
whites. Missouri and Louisiana are the two Slave 
States which receive the greatest share of foreign and 
native immigrants. The five BorderJStates and Louisiana 
together receive about 80 per cent, of the immigration to 
the whole South. 

TABLE XXIV. NATIVES OF THE FREE STATES AND IMMI 

GRANTS IN THE SLAVE STATES. 1850. 

THE BORDER SLAVE STATES. 

Natives of Free States. Foreign Immigrants. 

Delaware 6 900 5,600 

Maryland 23,800 51,300 

Virginia 29,000 22,500 

Kentucky 31,300 31,800 

Missouri 55,600 76,200 

THE WESTERN GULF STATES AND THE MISSISSIPPI. 

Louisiana 14.567 67,200 

Texas 9,900 7,400 . 

Tennessee 6,500 5,300 

Arkansas 7,900 1,300 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 



THE CAROLINA* AND THE EASTERN GUJJ • 



121 



Natives of Free States. Foreign Immigrants. 

North Carolina 2,100 . 2,500 

South Carolina 2.400 8,200 

Georgia 4.200 6,500 

Florida 1,700 2,600 

Alabama 4,900 7,400 

Mississippi 4,500 4,800 

The flesh and spirit of the free white population of the 
North and of Europe seem thus to act as leaven in the 
work of emancipation in the Border States. The forma- 
tion of a solid middle class of laborers, who neither are 
slaves nor keep slaves — the increase of the free colored 
population — the greater number of manumissions there 
than in other Slave States, in spite of the greater losses 
from fugitives — are facts intimately interwoven with each 
other. These States have thereby undergone such a 
change, and present such peculiar features, that it would 
be unfair to class them with the other Southern States. 
They are in a state of transition which makes them a 
class by themselves. 

IV. AMALGAMATION*". 

There is another force at work in the cause of Freedom. 
It is a physical force, but it acts as unconsciously as the 
social one we have just mentioned. It is the amalgama- 
tion of the white and the black races. The African and the 
Caucasian have never been connected so intimately as 
here. This country is in reality cosmopolite. Not only 
do the different branches of the same race — the Indo-Ger- 
manic — freely mingle with one another, but even two 
distinct races, in different stages of civilization, are here 
violently thrown into mutual embrace. 

We will not now examine into the ethnological or the 
moral merits of such a mixture, but only state the influence 

6 



12 2 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

it has on the social condition of the black race. And 
here one great fact stares us in the face, and that is : Amalga- 
mation breeds freedom. It is as if the drop of blood 
from the ruling Caucasian, in the veins of the mongrel off- 
spring, would never rest until the creature is as free as the 
creator. Let us see the general statistics referring to this 
matter ! 

There were, in 1775, about 479,000 slaves in this coun- 
try. We were not able to find anywhere how many of 
them were Mulattoes. Still, according to the statistics of 
other years, they must have been proportionately but a 
small number. 

Things have greatly changed since 1775. The Xegroes 
must have freely mixed with the white population. 

NUMBER OF BLACKS AXD MULATTOES. 

Tear. Blacks. Mulattoes. Total. 

1850.' ........ 3,233,000 .......... 405,700 '.'.'.'.'.... 3,638',700 

There were, thus, about as many Mulattoes in 1850 as 
there were slaves in 1775 ; and eleven per cent, of the col- 
ored population have a tincture of white blood, 

NUMBER OF FREE BLACKS AND FEEE MULATTOES. 1850. 

Total. Slaves. „J™ e - n 

Blacks 3,233,000 2,957,000 2,o,400 

Mulattoes .... 405,700 216.600 159,100 

As, in the North, both Blacks and Mulattoes are free, 
we add a table of the Slave States only. 

TABLE XXV. — PTXJMBEE OF FREE BLACKS AM) FEEE MULAT- 

TOES IN THE SLAVE STATES. — 1850. 

THE BORDEB STATES. 

States Total Blacks. Free Blacks. Total Mulattoes. F. Mulattoes. 

Delaware 18.000 16,400 1,700 1,000 

Maryland 143,800 61.100 21,500 13,600 

Virginia 447,000 ls.sOO 79.700 13,400 

Kentucky 188,600 7,300 32,300 2,000 

Missouri: 75,800 1,600 11,100 931 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 123 

THE CAKOLIXAS AND THE EASTERN CELF STATES. 

States. Total Blacks. Free Blacks. Total Mulattoes. F. Mulattoes. 

North Carolina. 281,900 1.0,200 34,000 17,200 

South Carolina. 377,000 4,500 10,800 4,300 

Georgia 300,400 1,400 24,100 1,500 

Florida 30,500 229 3,700 703 

Alabama 321.800 567 23.300 1,700 

Mississippi.... 290,400 295 20,300 600 

THE OTHER SLAVE STATES. 

Louisiana 228,300 200 33,900 14,000 

Texas 50,600 2,600 7,900 257 

Tennessee 221,700 3,300 24,100 3,700 

Arkansas 40,900 140 6,700 400 

Still it is difficult to give each State its proper share in 
this kind of Freedom's working, because there are no sta- 
tistics respecting the emigration of Mulattoes to other 
States. We give, therefore, the general ratio only, which 
is sufficient for our present purpose. Nine per cent, of the 
Blacks — but sixty-four per cent, of the Mulattoes, are 
free. It matters little how and through whose agency so 
many Mulattoes became free, though there is 1 Mulatto to 
every 234 white inhabitants of the North, while there is 
1 to every 18 of the South; but 64 per cent, of the Mulat- 
toes are free. 

Thus amalgamation breeds freedom. There is no mis- 
take in those simple figures. The black color, too, of 
the Negro bids fair gradually to pass away, and in 
some hundred years a genuine Negro will be a curiosity 
in this land of ours, especially a Negro slave. Still, as 
the Mulatto is more attractive than the Negro, amalga- 
mation with the latter might stop. But nature has well 
provided in this regard. The Mulatto, as we have proved 
above, becomes free, and leaves his place to the Negro. 

V. COLONIZATION. 

This is another agency in the cause of Freedom. The 
first American Colonization Society was organized Janu- 
ary 1st, 1817 — nine years after the abolition of the slave- 



124 



THE AMERICAN QUESTION 



trade. Since that time similar societies have been founded 
in many States. They all have the same purpose in view, 
and act with each other in harmonious concert. Some 
statistical tables will show how much has been done by 
colonization toward the " gradual abolition" of Slavery. 

In order to get a little insight into the details of its 
working, we take the following table from the "Annual 
Report of the American Colonization Society," 1858. 

FIRST VOYAGE, DECEMBER, 1856. 



State. 


Born 
free. 


Slave. 


By whom Emancipated. 


Massachusetts . . . 
Pennsylvania .... 

Maryland 

Virginia 

Do 


6 

1 
1 

1 


11 

68 

6 

5 
4 
8 
1 

12 

1 

1 

1 

54 

3 

1 

19 

4 

• ) 
7 


Emancipated by will of T. Shearman, 

of Fauquier County. 
Emancipated by will of James H. 

Terrell, of Albemarle County. 
Purchased by the executors of J. H. 

Tyrrell. 
Given by their owners. 
Purchased their freedom. 


Do 


Do 


Do 


Do 


Emancipated by persons in Kentucky. 
Emancipated by S. K. Houston, of 

Union, Va. 
Emancipated by will of Mrs. M. L. 

Gordon, of Hartford. 
Emancipated by Miss Charity Jones, 

Bladen County. 
Emancipated by Mrs. M. A. Williams, 

Savannah. 
Emancipated by will of J. B. Tafts, 

of Savannah. 
Emancipated by Richard Hoff, of Eg- 
bert County. 
Purchased their freedom. 
Emancipated by C. C. West, of Wood- 

ville. 
Emancipated by Harvey Berry, of 

Bath County." 
Emancipated by will of Elizabeth Yan- 

derson, o( McMinnville. 
Emancipated by John Jipson, Sparta. 
Do. by Peter and Nancy 


Do 


North Carolina . . 
Do 


Georgia 


Do 


Do 

Alabama 

Mississippi 

Kentucky 

Tennessee 

Do 


Do 


California 


Burum, of "White County. 


Total 


9 


208 





THE DEVELOPMENT. 



125 



From the same Report we made the following general 
table : 

TABLE XXVI. NUMBER OF EMIGRANTS SENT TO LIBERIA BY 

THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY AND ITS AUXILI- 
ARIES, FROM 1820 TO 1857, INCLUSIVE. 



Year. 
1820 


No. 

86 

33 

37 

65 

103 

66 

182 

222 

163 

205 

259 

83 

1,131 

— NU1 
I STA r 


Year. 
1833 




No. 
270 


Year. 
1846 




No. 
. 89 


1821 

L822 


1834. 
1835 




127 

. 146 


1847 

1848 

1849 

1850 

1851 

1852 

1853 


. 51 
. 441 


1823 

1824 

1825 

1826 

1827 . 


is:;.; 

1837. 

1838 

1839 

1840. 

1841 

1842 

1843 

1844. 

1845 

IBER 

rE, F 


OF I 

ROM 

34 

36 

46 

205 

35 

179 

5 

543 

104 

3.442 

1,283 

415 

1,030 

105 

536 

261 

697 

637 

55 


243 

138 

109 

47 

115 

85 

248 

85 

140 

187 

EMIGRANTS 

1820 TO ' 
Indiana. . . 


. 422 

. 500 
. 675 
. 640 
. 783 


1828 

1829 

1830 

1831 

1832 

TABLE XXVII. 
FROM EAC] 

Massachusetts . 


1854 

1855 

1856 

1857 

; SENT TO 
1857, INCL 


LIB 

usn 


. 553 
. 207 
. 538 
. 370 

ERIA, 
E. 

78 








Illinois 

Missouri . . 


34 








83 




Michigan . 

Iowa 

Texas 

Choctaw N 
Cherokee > 
California . 

Total i 

Number be 

Number 
freedom 

Number 
view of < 
beria . . . 






1 


New Jersey . . . 
Pennsylvania. . 


ation 




3 
10 

7 








ration 




1 


District of Columbia. . 




lumber .... 




1 








9,872 








rn free .... 




Georgia 

Alabama 

Mississippi .... 

Louisiana 

Tennessee 

Kentucky 

Ohio 






3,730 


purchased their 

3mancipated in 
emigrating to Li- 


332 
5,810 



The above does not include the number (about 1,000) that have been 
sent by the Maryland Colonization Society to the Colony of ' ' Maryland 
in Liberia." 

This is a work in which all States are co-operators, and 
all individuals may lend their assistance. It is wonderful 
what this American Colonization Society has accomplished 



12 6 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

with comparatively small means. It would only need 
greater liberality on the part of the United States, the 
States, and individuals to prosper the noble work still 
more, and make the little Republic of Liberia " one of the 
brightest hopes" of modern philanthropy. 

The forty-third Annual Eeport of the American Colon- 
ization Society for 1860 refers to the "pressure of the 
monetary difficulties of the country," which the Society 
has felt considerably. But there is a little paragraph 
showing the effect of our political difficulties on the work 
of colonization, which we can not help giving in full : 

" Emigration of Free colored persons has, from several 
causes, been retarded ; but in the Northern and Middle 
States, during the last year, their thoughts have been 
directed to Africa, and they have sought knowledge of its 
advantages for their future home. In the South, this 
class, in consequence of agitations on the Slavery question, 
are exposed to new trials ; in some cases compelled to 
leave the places of their residence, and we trust Divine 
Providence will direct their way to Liberia, where alone, 
at present, their highest interests can most certainly be 
secured and perpetuated. And surely common humanity 
(to say nothing of the spirit of the religion of Christ) de- 
mauds, while these people are expelled from some districts 
of the South to seek in vain for comfortable homes at the 
North, that their friends should encourage and assist them 
to take possession of the great inheritance prepared for 
them by Providence in the land of their fathers." 

CONCLUSION. 

We have now passed over the whole ground of the 
social development of our question in all its principal 



THE DEVELOPMENT. 127 

phases, down to the present day. The general progress 
of humanity — the spirit of modern religion — the common 
origin of man descending from the same ancestral parents, 
and made after a common type — philanthropy, love of man 
in a narrower sense of the word, or love of everything 
created — the physical and the moral interests of the slave- 
holder — the spirit of the Constitution, and the incontro- 
vertible "logic of facts" in our own history — all point 
toward protection and assistance of our brethren in bond- 
age, toward a mitigation of their condition, and a gradual 
abolition. History has not spoken in vain for us, and 
Humanity is not an empty sound. "We are no exception, 
no anomaly in modern progress. We have prohibited the 
slave-trade; we have directly abolished Slavery in some 
States ; we have sent our missionaries of white flesh and 
free spirit all over our land ; we have condescended to a 
generous amalgamation with the black man; we have 
civilized and colonized. These are certainly unmistakable 
symptoms of our passing, like other modern nations, on- 
ward toward greater freedom and gradual abolition. 

Thus, everything points toward the gradual abolition of 
Slavery, and Slavery must and will vanish from our soil. 
except the infamous slave-trade be re-opened, or a new race 
be enslaved. But neither part of this alternative can be 
realized. We can not, in the face of almost unanimous 
resolutions in Congress, passed from the earliest beginning 
of our nation down to the present time, re-establish that 
world-desired traffic in human flesh. We can not so much 
despair in our present era as to believe that a gang of wily 
politicians might be found who would dare to undo, in 
a disgraceful moment, what a hundred noble years have 
done. Xo! no new slave will ever be imported by the 



128 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

consent of the United States, nor will ever a new slave be 
made, be he of African or other blood, through war or 
conquest. The time "for the repeal of the laws in the 
way of importation of bond-servants from Africa, and for 
the passage of proper laws to protect the same," will 
never come ! That unsophisticated merchant who, from 
his retirement in Tivoli or Paphos, sent forth such words 
as the above to an "ignorant" North, will never be able 
to ship or see shipped a cargo of African flesh into the 
United States, nor will his children or children's children 
ever have that innocent pleasure. 

But why is there now, in the face of all this irrefutable 
testimony of progressive history, so much struggling and 
battling on the part of some of us against this work of 
Freedom? Why is there such a violent stemming against 
Liberty, that most precious gift to man, so tenderly cher- 
ished by everything living ? Is Freedom a curse, and 
Slavery bliss ? Is Freedom weakness, and Slavery power? 

And has not all this work been done within the Union? 
Why are there now cries and Ordinances of disunion and 
secession? "What is the disturbing element which troubles 
the waters of peace and interrupts the work of Freedom ? 

But this will lead us to the political aspect of the ques- 
tion, which requires, indeed, our special and separate 
attention. 






BOOK IV. 



THE CRISIS. 



book: tv„ 
THE CRISIS 



L— THE BALANCE OF POWER. 

The new product of cotton, "which in 1794 was 
scarcely an item of export," gradually increased and made 
the slave more valuable to the South. This increase of 
cotton created a new interest, not known to the Xorth, and 
even unimagined by the framers of the Constitution ; and 
on it a new political machinery was founded ; it was the 
so-called Balance of Power, into which all the Slave States 
were gradually drawn. 

Whenever this force or interest appears in one and the 
same nation, the term " Union" has almost lost its power, 
and " Harmony" alone can take its place. Balance of 
Power is the sign of the existence of a " diremptive" or 
centrifugal force somewhere. Common attraction has 
ceased, and Balance of Power is only the artificial glue to 
keep together heterogeneous elements. But this struggle 
for Balance of Power became a definite historical fact in 
the same measure that the geographical sections became 
more distinct and separated. The South required now for 
every new Free State a new Slave State, and the old Con- 
stitution was " squeezed," and bent, and interpreted to suit 
the new wants. The noble founders of our Union, and 



232 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

the framers of our Constitution, did not foresee such a 
state of things. They did not suspect the so speedy ar- 
rival of King Cotton and Queen Balance with their re- 
spective suites. But these royal guests have arrived ! 
They have been here a long time, managing and develop- 
ing their forces ! They are of a grasping stock, too ! 
They have a Manifest Destiny to help them along. They 
hold a brilliant court, and their followers and armies are 
well fed and well rewarded with offices and honors ! They 
have the Spread-Eagle for their colors, though, in their 
enlarged patriotism, they never forget themselves entirely. 
They have procured Texas " for the Union." They have 
obliterated that awkward line drawn across " a common 
country." They have endeavored to carry their ideas into 
all the new States and Territories. They are liberal 
enough to carry their " property" there, too, in all its 
different shapes, and work it for the more rapid progress 
of those new lands. They see, themselves, the wrong of 
Balance of Power in a Union, and therefore do their best 
to make this vast empire one, united, and common in 
everything ; in hearts, in hands, and in all sorts of prop- 
erty, landed and personal, immovable and movable, black 
and white. That they are earnest in their purposes, 
they have lately shown in Kansas, though they may have, 
at times, met with failures. That they have pluck and do 
things thoroughly, they have most recently proved by hang- 
ing all they could procure, or keep alive, of the Harper's 
Ferrymen. But, t) not things that grow over-night, 

or reach to swli dimensions by inward strength only. 
They needed the care of outsiders, and they had it, 
indeed, most effectually. The North, with hot-house ten- 
derness, kindly kept off all the cold blasts, and thus aided 



THE CRISIS. 133 

the growth of the Political Power of the South. "The North, 
for some reason," says Daniel Webster, " never exercised 
their majority efficiently live times in the history of the gov- 
ernment, when a division or trial, of strength arose." Among 
the courtiers around the new-born throne, we saw, there- 
fore, representatives of all the States of the Union, South 
and North, East and West, and the royal couple never 
rejected outlandish applicants. It gave the court a more 
cosmopolitan air when all the climates of this Western 
World, those where the " colored people" dwell, and those 
where the " Niggers" grow, sent their pale sons to join in 
doing homage. 

But the whole court has for some time been growing 
old and feeble. Its usurpation in obliterating the political 
compromise line of Freedom and Slavery was the culmi- 
nating point of its power. It violated the humble Magna 
Charta of Freedom, and then commenced the days of 
trouble and dissension, as was prophesied even by South- 
ern Statesmen. 

The feeling of indignation soon gave itself vent in bit- 
ter words. The halls of our legislatures resounded with 
the most passionate language. At last it came to bloody 
acts. The most cowardly assaults were hailed as deeds 
of valor. Threats of disimion were soon everywhere ut- 
tered, as indifferently as if there was no such word as 
Treason in the laws of our land. Northerners were driven 
from the South, and Southern youths were eager to flee 
from the " pestilential air of Northern Abolitionism." The 
frontiers of the two sections were strewn with the bone3 
of murdered citizens, slain by brother-hand. The gallows 
of John Brown was gloomily towering over the once 
sacred Mason and Dixon's line ; and now, shooting, lynch- 



134 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

ing, and hanging are the regular order of the day. But 
Kansas is free, and the party raised on account of Southern 
usurpation has at last gained the victory. 

" One evil never comes alone." King Cotton lost, at 
the same time, his monarchical privileges all over the 
world. There are now many lands rising which dare 
to compete with his universal power. Thus, disappointed 
in his hopes and thwarted in his plans, King Cotton 
lost his temper, began a family quarrel, dismissed his 
cherished old queen, Lady Balance, and allied himself to 
Dame Secession, young and sprightly in appearance, but 
treacherous and rotten at the core. In anger he leaves 
his old mother Union, builds a new home, a new capital, 
and a new throne, where he can, undisturbed by the 
groans of Freedom, feast alone and forsaken on the halle- 
lujahs of Slavery. 

In order to reach his object and satisfy his ruling ten- 
dency, he is ready to nullify, to secede, to separate, to 
break the Union ; to fight, and slay, and be slain — all for 
the sake of Power and Rule. lie wants to draw into his 
modern hexarchy all cis-Masonic States, from which even 
the Albino courtiers of the North shall henceforth be ex- 
cluded. 

But let us dismiss all personifications and figures, and 
face the present trouble in all its gravity. 

The American question has gradually become one of 
nationality. The establishment of the Missouri line, drawn 
through the midst of a common country, was one of the 
first great political onslaughts against our nationality. It 
was, indeed, the first step toward denationalization. Un- 
der the protection of that line, that unnatural element of 
Balance of Power grew until it was forced to turn either 









TIIE CRISIS 



135 



into Supremacy or Secession. Thwarted in the former, 
the South had only the latter to rely upon. Had it not 
been for that political interference, the American question 
would never have assumed the present character. 

II.— SECESSION. 

Since the Constitution of the United States contains no 
special provision for the case of a State wishing to secede 
from the Union, the inference might be fair that States 
have no constitutional right of secession. The Constitution 
seems even positively to prohibit secession. We read in 
Art. II., Sec. 10 : "Xo State shall, without the consent of 
Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troo})s, or ships 
of war, in time of peace, enter into any agreement or 
compact with another State, or with a foreign power." 
Even the preparatory steps necessary for secession seem 
thus to be forbidden by the Constitution. But should the 
South seek to evade the letter of the Constitution by a 
separate secession, it would undoubtedly violate its spirit. 
Madison's words : " The Constitution requires an adoption 
in toto and forever !" are generally acknowledged to be the 
fair interpretation of that instrument. 

But we will leave the question of the constitutionality 
of secession undecided. We will even suppose that the 
Constitution does not prohibit secession. In such a case 
we must have recourse to general political reasoning and to 
arguments from history. We will take the popular view 
of " State," for otherwise the question would be decided 
in a moment. 

If this Union is a mere compact for an indefinite number 
of years, its end, as its beginning, must depend upon some 
act of mutual agreement between the parties concerned. 



136 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

In making the original compact, certain conditions were en- 
tered into by the parties, and certain duties -were im- 
posed upon them, expressly or by the very nature of the 
compact. Should even all these duties and conditions have 
been complied with on the side of the party wishing to 
secede, an unceremonious withdrawal would be illegal and 
cause a total forfeiture of all claims on the common prop- 
erty. In any case, then, a consultation with the different 
members of the compact seems to be necessary, previously 
to a positive act of open secession. 

Such cases are nothing novel in the history of states, 
and they were long since formalized by writers on Public 
Law. Grotius, thus, agreeably to the above reasoning, 
sums up the whole matter by saying : " A state which had 
been one, may be divided, either consensu miituo, or vi 
beUica." " Mutual Consent" or " Force of War" is thus the 
alternative given by the " Father of the Law of Xations," 
the first authority in Public Law, even to the present day. 
"Mutual Consent" is, however, the first clause of that 
alternative, and " Force of War" is consequent only upon 
a failure of the first. 

Almost all cases of a similar nature in modern history 
verify the above alternative and the order of its succession. 
The way by " Mutual Consent" was first tried, and only 
when all peaceable means were found futile, was " Force 
of War" resorted to. 

Such is the history of the Xctherlanders, of world-wide 
fame. For many years they had endured the blighting 
breath of the Spanish tyrant. They had felt each new 
wrong, each new insult, each new disgrace thrown upon 
them by a fiendish power. They protested, they peti- 
tioned, they prayed for justice, they remonstrated, they 



THE CRISIS. 121 

sent delegates to the King, they opened negotiations, they 
sued for redress ; and only when petitions and remon- 
strances, conventions and negotiations, brought about no 
definite result, they raised their arms to fight for their 
rights, they seceded and declared their independence of an 
unfriendly government. 

Such, too, was the history of our own United States two 
hundred years later. We were similarly circumstanced 
and acted similarly. We, too, petitioned and protested, 
convened and negotiated, and only when remonstrances 
and threats proved futile, was war declared and independ- 
ence achieved. 

These are the two most brilliant examples of secession 
in modern history. There are others, memorable, too, but 
less successful. Poland could not recover its independence. 
Hungary was ruthlessly delivered to Austria. In others still, 
secession was less bloody, as in the separation of Belgium 
from Holland ; and Neufchatel, the Swiss canton, went, in- 
deed, quite peaceably out of the guardianship of Prussia. 

But there is an example of secessionary character in 
a country which bears great resemblance to our own. 
It is in Switzerland, a republican confederacy like ours, 
only growing less slowly into a united nationality. In 
1846, several cantons or states resolved upon setting up a 
" Sonder-bund," a separate league. But the federal au- 
thorities, backed by the patriotic masses of the other can- 
tons, tarried not long in deciding which policy to choose — 
that of coercion or that of " laissez faire." A federal 
army was sent against the rebels, and in spite of Austrian 
arms and Catholic money, the secessionists were conquered, 
and Jesuitism, the bone of contest in that case, was hurled 
from the territory of united Switzerland. What Jesuitism 



138 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

was there, Slavery is here. We will examine whether such 
a " Jacksonian" policy would suit the present circumstances. 

III.— OUR POLICY. 

Which policy will now be expected on one side and on 
the other ? What will the South do, and what the United 
States ? 

These Southern States which are eager after revolution- 
ary fame, might undoubtedly profit by the two great mod- 
els we cited. We can not expect so much humility as in 
the early days of the Xetherland struggles, nor so much 
patience as in our own American revolution. But the 
chivalric Southerners ought not to be behind the sturdy 
Dutchmen, or the valiant Americans of old, in the ways 
of gallantry and manliness. They ought, certainly, to 
show as much frankness and forbearance toward a free 
republic as those early heroes showed toward despotic 
kings. They ought first to endeavor to obtain retrievance 
for their injuries, real or imaginary ; and even in the case 
of a temporary refusal of their requests, they ought, as 
freemen and republicans of the nineteenth century, try 
again all peaceable means to avoid a violent disrupture of 
the once cherished empire. It can only be lamented that 
some of the Southern States have taken a different course, 
a course unwise and fatal to their best interests. 

And what might we reasonably expect from the central 
power of tire United States, from the Union as such? 
She would listen to the grievances which are given as 
cause for secession; she would endeavor to remove this 
cause, should those grievances be found to rest on real 
injustice done to the respective parties by the republic ; 
she would construe and interpret the Constitution, the 



THE CRISIS. • ]39 

principal and fundamental bond of our Union, in the 
liberal spirit of this enlightened age; and should those 
grievances be found to be mere fancies, she would try to 
convince the rebellious States of their unjust and injurious 
policy; and, lastly, if negotiations and persuasions should 
be of no avail, she would be tempted, from love of peace, 
rather to let a State go than to incur the responsibility of 
the horrors of a civil war. 

And still such a yielding policy would awaken some fear 
for the future of the empire even in the most peace-loving 
breast. Where and when would secession then stop ? If 
the " sovereign" States have a right to secede, what would 
hinder us from breaking into thirty-four separate and in- 
dependent republics ? Further still, we, the " sovereign'' 
people of these United States, have established this Con- 
stitution ! Would not the "sovereigns" of each State, 
then, have the same right of breaking it as the States, or 
even more than they ? What would hinder the city of 
New York from seceding ? What, other cities, and coun- 
ties, and islands, and townships ? Whither would this 
"separatism," "this disorganizing individualism," lead us? 
" Would not," in the words of Taylee Lewis, "a polit- 
ical death come over what before was full of social life, 
and society be decomposed in its individual elements, and 
no longer be a Body, but a Jtfase — a mass of putrescent 
and fermenting atoms ?" 

We are not yet near such a stage of perfect disorgaiiiza- 
tion. But it is clear that a yielding policy would n<>t save 
us from that danger. 

This consideration will be weighed in the minds of 
patriotic statesmen Xorth and South, and will influence 
their action. 



140 TH E AMERICAN QUESTION. 

It would have been much easier to secede in the 
earliest days of the republic and of the new Constitution. 
There were, at that time, thirteen little colonies scattered 
over a large surface. Each little colony formed a prov- 
ince or State by itself. Each had a small population, 
and was often separated from the others by large 
wastes and impassable woods, or alienating prejudices. 
A single glance into the history of those thirteen different 
settlements, a mere look at a geographical map of that 
time, must disclose the secret. They were as yet but 
loosely connected, and their principal bond of Union 
was at first merely a common opposition to a common 
enemy. 

But what a different aspect the country has now, after a 
united growth of nearly a century ! The frontiers between 
the different States are obliterated. The enlightened pop- 
ulation increased and spread over woods and wastes. The 
once separated States blended and grew into each other, and 
had we now to form a new Confederacy, a new Constitution, 
a new State, a new Nation, would it ever enter our minds 
now to make a dividing line between Connecticut and 
Rhode Island, between New Hampshire and Massachu- 
setts, between Delaware and Pennsylvania and Maryland ? 
What need would there be of such a number of Governors 
and Capitals and separate Legislatures and other political 
machinery in the New England States? And we might 
multiply our examples. But it is sufficient for the present 
purpose to point out the undeniable fact that Ave have all, land 
and people, grown more and more into a better, united, and 
more compact body, whose period of epiphysis is almost 
over, and has thus caused such an intimate connection that 
any separation of its members would leave an open, if not a 



THE CRISIS. 141 

fatal wound. Several Southern States, carried away by 
the first excitement, and aided by a wavering policy of 
the federal government, may make secession a fait ac- 
compli on paper. It seems highly probable that this will 
be the face the matter will take. But this very non- 
opposition will allay the passion of the seceders, and they 
will soon awake to a consciousness of the fearful posi- 
tion in which they have placed themselves ; for the people 
can not, for any long period of time, remain blind to 
the immeasurable advantages of a common Union, and 
the unavoidable injuries and calamities arising from Dis- 
union. 

This growing together, this united national life, is even 
the very distinguishing characteristic of our present won- 
derful civilization. Germany is panting for unity, and has 
made the preparatory steps for its accomplishment. Italy 
has inaugurated a more poetical and radical method of 
reaching the same end. The republics of Central America 
are laboring under the same process, and South America 
appreciates slowly the merits of union. 

History clearly shows that Disunion of parts that prop- 
erly belong together, is fatal in the end. There is Holland, 
formerly so powerful, and Belgium, and the Hanse towns, 
and the Italian republics. " Individuals," says the famous 
Fe. List, " owe the greatest part of m their productive 
power to the political organization and to the power 
of the country in which they reside. A considerable 
population, and a vast territory, with varied resources, 
are essential elements of normal nationality, fundamental 
conditions of moral culture, as well as of material develop- 
ment of political power." 

There is among a united people less fear and insecurity, 



142 TnE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

and, consequently, less waste of labor ; a more steady in- 
dustry, and a more reliable market. The policy of even 
friendly foreign states changes often unawares, and causes 
disappointment and loss beyond their own limits. There 
are no fortresses needed to protect the many boundaries, 
no troops or vessels to watch possible encroachments, no 
turnpikes or custom-houses to guard against foreign com- 
petition. There is free communication, free commerce, 
free trade, in the largest and most essential acceptation of 
the word ; unfettered exchange of products, unfettered in- 
tercourse of men. This is the free trade for which the 
greatest statesmen and economists were laboring through 
so many centuries against that self-splitting system of feudal 
seclusiveness and dismemberment. Those heroes are now 
ignorantly thrown in the category of the narrow-minded 
modern free-traders, who, in their eagerness after foreign 
trade, forget the labor, freedom, and consolidation of their 
own country. Free trade is, indeed, a vital principle of a 
nation's life, if it means free commerce of men and pro- 
duce, not on principles of privileges inherited or newly 
granted, but on principles of the equal interests of all 
individual members and states, of common sympathy, of a 
common policy, and a common destiny. Free trade in this 
sense creates fresh stimulus, new thrift and enjoyment, 
security and reliance, peace and power, an accumulated and 
multiplied force, and leads a nation, as a compact body, 
toward one common object. 

This is Avhat is meant by Union ; this is what is meant 
by Nationality ; and these advantages are either already 
at our command, or they are growing upon us so much 
the more exuberantly as we diligently watch our Union, 
ward off its dangers, reform its abuses, regulate its gov- 



THE CRISIS. 143 

eminent, and understand our mission. AW' have, indeed, 
already become one of the Great Powers of the world, 
with the duties and privileges incumbent upon Mich a 
glorious rank. We, the people, have labored together 
this long time for a common destiny, in spite of political 
disturbances. The world has learned to know American 
industry, American commerce, American art, American 
civilization. We have perceived more clearly from day 
to day that we have a common destiny, a common mission 
to ourselves, to America, and to the world. And such 
a united growth has, in spite of the invectives and mis- 
representations of political parties, laid the foundation for 
a solid Love of the Union, which needs but a moment of 
unbiased self-consciousness to rouse it to unheard-of deeds 
of patriotic valor. 

Xow, such thoughts will bear upon the minds of the 
people in all parts of our common land, and forebode a bet- 
ter future. But, in view of these undeniable facts, the 
country will also wake up to a true sense of its responsibili- 
ties. For we may, in the end, reach our common object, 
pointed out to us by Xature ; but wavering counsels and 
lack of decision may make us pass through years of unne- 
cessary suffering and misfortune. It is the best policy to 
face at once the whole danger. There is more at stake 
than the welfare of the Negro Slave. A nationality, a 
republic, a Great Power of the world, American civiliza- 
tion, the progress of the whole world, are in question, and 
the United States can not allow herself to be split or give 
up any part of her territory which is positively necessary 
for the accomplishment of her fundamental plan and the 
realization of the original idea which called her into 
being. 



144 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

IV.— INTEGRITY OF THE UNION. 

There are certain parts of a nation's territory which are 
positively necessary for the nation's existence. These may 
be called its integral parts. Other districts, provinces, or 
states may be less necessary, and the nation's destiny may 
be reached without them. Xow, no integral part can be 
allowed to secede if the nation is true to itself, to its 
original plan, and to its mission. Xo failure, be it from 
lack of patriotism or from downright treason, can ever 
alter this political axiom. 

The only question will, then, be : What are to be regard- 
ed as integral parts of the United States ? Under this 
name we must first comprise all national property — viz., 
property held by the United States for the purpose of 
protecting and defending itself against any encroachments, 
political or commercial. Such are all national " forts, 
magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful build- 
ings," thus specified in the Constitution. They are neces- 
sary for two purposes — namely, for repelling the attacks 
of a hostile power, and for collecting the revenue. And 
they will remain to be necessary, whatever the policy of 
the United States may be during the long internal process 
of secession. We say " long," because actual and total 
secession is not the work of an Ordinance ; it would take 
a State months, and probably years, to break entirely 
loose from the Union and reconstruct a separate and in- 
dependent government. 

Especially must those forts and buildings and magazines 
be kept (during that whole process) which protect the 
United States boundaries. For if certain States should 
even be allowed to secede, and should actually secede, the 



THE CPwISIS. 145 

United States would, by such separation, receive a new 
boundary line, and this boundary line would be entirely 
exposed. In case of war, she would be entirely unguard- 
ed on that whole line, and be open there to any surprise ; 
and even in peace she could not protect her commercial 
policy against smuggling and other foreign encroachments. 
There could thus, even in case of a yielding policy, not be 
the faintest doubt about the right and duly and present 
policy of the United States in regard to her national prop- 
erty. She would be obliged to keep her old forts and posts 
of revenue, whatever her final policy in regard to secession 
mio-ht be, until a new cordon of fortifications and custom- 
houses could be established along the new boundary, and 
all other national works, made necessary by a separation 
of States, could be completed. She must keep them,, de- 
fend them, and in case of treason or defeat, retake them. 
Anything short of this would be cowardice and treason, 
and would bring the curses of the nation and of the world 
on the head of the Executive. 



Let us now examine the character of the States them- 
selves that think of secession, or have passed secession 
ordinances. We begin with Texas. 

"Without entering into the political history of that State, 
it will need no argument to prove that its annexation was 
entirely unnecessary for the preservation, or growth, or 
position, or power of the United States. Its conquest 
may have been a necessity by reason of Balance of Pow< r, 
but neither its climate nor its soil, neither its geograph- 
ical position nor its people, made its annexation a neces- 
sity for the Union as such. To be sure, it cosl us heavy 
sacrifices of blood and money. But Texas would not be 

7 



140 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

worth a civil war, for the Union can and would stand 
without it. Texas may, therefore, be allowed to " slide 
off" South, East, or West, and become an independent 
State or a joint member of others. 

We must, once for all, dismiss the common popular 
belief that we can prosper only by spreading over a larger 
area. We have enough territory, or rather more than is 
needed for centuries to come. We have no superfluous 
force to send off into foreign states or lands. We have 
plenty to do in what is already ours. There is yet an 
immense amount of our own land to be settled, cultivated, 
and watched over. We have not now, nor had we ever 
need of any part of Mexico, foreign to us in everything. 
We have no force to spare for its colonization. What we 
did: in that regard, we did at the cost of our own peace 
and prosperity, without any benefit to us. As a Xation, 
we have no need of Mexico. As a Great Power of the 
world, the duty of guarding her does not devolve upon 
us alone. An American policy, strictly American, with 
the United States as Supreme Judge over all matters con- 
cerning the continent of America, is an anachronism and 
an absurdity. The world is no longer disconnected or 
inaccessible in its different parts. There are Great Powers 
of the world to whose surveillance no quarter of the 
globe is a stranger. And they have as much right here as 
anywhere else, and we have as much right anywhere else 
as here, or would have, if our narrow foreign policy 
allowed us to see our true position in the world.* 
To California the same reasoning would apply as to 



o This will be the subject of a work by the author, now in course 
of preparation. Title: "The Five Great Powers of Europe and the 
United States of America." 



THE CRISIS. !47 

Texas, were it not for its gold. But thifl exception is, after 
all, but imaginary. We needed California just as little as 
we needed Texas. The same amount of labor and capital 
invested in any one of our older States or Territories 
would have done much more to increase the wealth and to 
consolidate the power of the United States. We were 
spreading over our older lands with a sjjeed greater than 
was beneficial to us individually or as a nation, and terri- 
ble were, and are still, the sufferings of those thrown to 
the outskirts of the inhabited and civilized part of our 
empire. They j:>ass through years of misery and famine 
before they attain the most necessary comforts of a civil- 
ized life. Imaginary cities and paper railroads allure the 
weary laborer, eager to obtain a free homestead. The com- 
mercial policy of the nation and political speculations con- 
spire with each other to send new crowds of emigrants to 
the West. And, indeed, the sparse lands of the first pio- 
neers could be aided in no other way than by sending out 
new men and new money : otherwise they would have per- 
ished. The only difficulty was, and is yet, that, though 
Europe sends annually hundreds and hundreds of thousands 
to aid the spreading of cultivation and the extending of our 
area of active power, still the flood is too feeble, the num- 
ber of immigrants too small; for speculation is ever paving 
a new "West, whose end seems never to be reached. 

While, then, this process of wasting dispersion was 
going on in the older part of our empire, a dispersion 
which only the superhuman exertion of the emigrants from 
the East and from Europe could keep from becoming an 
entire dissolution, California, on the extremest point of our 
national surface, was, with golden cords, violently drawn 
into the same system of diverging. Still more distant, 



14 o THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

and less connected with the older part of the nation, it 
required new waste of labor and capital to keep up a com- 
mercial and political connection. It once retarded a finan- 
cial crisis, but it could not prevent it. We imported from 
Europe, at a fabulous rate, the fabrics of foreign labor ; 
we paid with the agricultural products of the South and of 
the West ; we spread over new lands to wrest from our vir- 
gin soil new products for foreign exports ; we sent stocks 
of every description and name, public and private, to our 
creditors beyond the ocean ; but all our exertions to keep 
up some show of balance were in vain ; we needed the 
costly erection of a far-off workshop in the mines of Cali- 
fornia, to delay the final crash. The chance of gaining 
wealth with little labor, to be sure, gave an extraordinary 
impulse to human adventure ; and life, labor, and capital 
were recklessly thrown away to feed the Golden Calf. 
But, had we kept our hands and capital at home, had we 
built up our own industry, melted our own iron ore, and 
fabricated our cloth, we would now be less dependent 
upon our own and foreign merchant princes ; we would be 
richer, and stronger, and happier, and more civilized, 
though we had never known of the gold mountains of 
California. Gold is a product like others. It can not be 
obtained without labor. Labor is the measure of its value 
as it is the measure of the value of any other product. 
Nor is it a more necessary article of wealth than cloth or 
iron. There is no need of gold as a circulating medium. 
The world could at least have done without California or 
Australia. Then, as an article of manufacture, it is a 
luxury, and has its substitutes. 

Still we have California, and we must do our duty 
toward her. The Pacific coast would naturally have been 



THE CRISIS. 149 

the last of all the lands of the United States to be drawn 
into a common national life. The commerce with Asia 
would scarcely have necessitated an exceptional course. 
A Pacific Railroad, to have benefited at once the whole 
empire, must have led through a chain of settled lands. 
But the extraordinary history of California requires ex- 
traordinary measures, and therefore the Road is a na- 
tional necessity. However, should California wish to se- 
cede, the nation would save new expenses, and probably 
new struggles, and soon recover from a momentary dis- 
turbance of its commercial and industrial life. But the 
Gold State knows its advantages too well to desire 
secession. 

Our relations with Louisiana are far different. The 
whole old territory of Louisiana w r as bought from France. 
It was bought by the United States, not by one particular 
State, or for one State, but by the whole and for the 
whole — for a common national purpose. It was bought, 
not for its people alone, but especially for its land and its 
river. In the earliest days of our republic, the Missis- 
sippi, down to its very mouth, was considered as neces- 
sary for the development of our Western Territories. The 
Western people, even in those early times, saw plainly that 
they could not do without a permanent and undisturbed 
right of freely navigating the Mississippi. Such a right, 
however, could be "undisturbed and permanent" only 
when the whole river was in their possession. They knew 
this; it w T as a general Western thought — nay, more, a 
common national thought, shared by all people and all 
statesmen. The Western people, therefore, laid plans for 
seizing New Orleans, even while it was yet Spanish. No 
wonder, indeed, that Jefferson used such decided language 



150 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

about its acquisition, and that Bonaparte, from whom it 
was at last purchased, said : " This accession of territory 
strengthens forever the power of the United States." 

The Mississippi Valley, drained by the Mississippi and 
its tributaries, contains an area of over a million square 
miles. It is nearly as large as the slopes of the Pacific 
and the Atlantic together, and one third larger than the 
whole domain of the republic upon the adoption of the 
present Constitution. (Census, 1850.) In future centuries 
it may be a great republic by itself— the Great Republic 
of the Valley of the Mississippi, a friendly sister of a 
Great Pacific and of a Great Atlantic Republic. But at 
present, and probably for some centuries to come, such 
a separation will not be necessitated by any demands 
of self-interest, of executive expediency, or of economy. 

Now, the mouth of the Mississippi is to the West, and 
thus to the United States, the same as the mouth of the 
Thames is to England, or that of the Rhone to France, or 
that of the Volga to Russia, and it will be claimed as a 
national river, and be defended as such. 

Therefore, we must expect many and earnest efforts on 
the part of the United States to keep the extensive terri- 
tory of old Louisiana and the present State in harmonious 
connection with the main body. It is, beyond the faintest 
doubt, an integral part of the Union, and will regard itself 
as such, and be so regarded. Patriotic counsels and com- 
mon interests will tend to suppress undue excitement and 
re-establish peace and harmony. 

We now come to the Bokdek Slave States. Looking 
at their position between the number-filled North and the 
more thinly-settled South, we might conclude a priori 
that their greatest attraction lies Northward. The force 



THE CRISIS. 151 

of attraction is in proportion to the force of production, 

and this again is so much the greater as the population is 
the larger. 

This theory is proved by practice. The principal ex- 
changes of the Border States are with the States north of 
them. Moreover, the chief product of their Southern 
neighbors is not carried to them directly. It is taken to 
the far-off seaports, and then it is shipped to Europe, and 
thence again to their Northern neighbors, until at last, 
after a long and costly circumambulation, it arrives at 
their homes from the side exactly opposite the one from 
which it started. (And this is probably the way vrhich 
cotton is to go for a long period of years, whether there 
be secession or not.) Thus this very Southern staple rivets 
still closer the Border States to their Northern friends. 

Their population, too, and their whole progress show, in 
spite of Slavery, unmistakable signs of sympathy with the 
North. (See Tables on page 118.) 

Under the regis of a common nationality, the white 
population gradually pressed down into the Border Slave 
States, which were thus — we repeat — slowly and peace- 
ably being transformed into Free States. Had it not been 
for political disturbances, this process would have gone on 
still more rapidly. It is the way prescribed by nature for 
freeing States, and the work is done unconsciously on the 
part of the immigrants from Europe and the North, but it 
is none the less surely done. There was thus a living 
and lasting tie forming between the Border Slave States 
and the Free North, and all boundary lines were vanishing. 

And this was undoubtedly the cause of the steady in- 
crease of free colored persons in those States. In 1850, 
one seventh of their total colored population was free. 



152 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

This peaceable progress of Freedom may also be seen 
in the number of manumissions. The Border States suffer 
the most from the loss of fugitive slaves ; still, in them 
the number of manumissions is far larger than the number 
of fugitives. 

The Border States seem thus to be very intimately con- 
nected with their Northern neighbors. Their commerce, 
their population, their history, their geographical position, 
and their whole progress point to the North and to Union. 
Ambitious politicians may, perhaps, for a while misguide 
the people of some of those States, but they can not blind 
them, for any considerable time, to their real interests. 
They know, too, that should they remain in the Union, 
the greatest delicacy would be shown to them. As Slave 
States they would then be in a small minority ; but this 
very fact would obliterate Slavery as a basis of party dis- 
tinction. There would be one common country, and all 
its parts would faithfully do their duty toward one another, 
in strict conformance to the dictates of the Constitution. 

There are then the States of Tennessee and Arkansas. 
They show in everything their close connection with 
Kentucky and Missouri, and with the great Valley of 
the Mississippi, whose fate they must share. The free 
West and two nourishing Border States on their North, 
Louisiana, with its increasing white population, on their 
South, and the unbroken Mississippi, will, we hope, be 
fetters strong enough to keep those two States also from 
violently leaving the Union. 

And now there are six States left, the two Carolinas 
and the Eastern Gulf States ! Why should they wish 
to secede ? Are there not in their history additional 
reasons which should make them both wise and grateful ? 



THE CRISIS. 153 

Has it not been demonstrated over and over again that 
the South, both in peace and in war, lias ever derived the 
greatest material advantages from being in the Union? 
What is the injury which they have now received a1 the 
bands of the North? The election of a Republican Presi- 
dent? No; this accidental occasion, selected for seces- 
sion, can not be called even the near cause. It is of im- 
portance duly insomuch as it fixes the date of the event. 
The President-elect has repeatedly declared himself in 
favor of a strict adherence to a constitutional Fugitive 
Slave Law. He has gone still further, and frankly ex- 
pressed his opinion to be that the United States, as Buch, 
has nothhig to do with Slavery where it exists. He, then, 
stands on a platform which contains not the faintest whis- 
per of Abolition sentiments. He is the standard-bearer 
of a party which— in order to show the South that they 
were no Abolitionists — committed the indelicacy of drag- 
ging Joiia Bnowx, who had duly been caught, tried, 
sentenced, hung, and buried, from an "honorable" soli- 
tude into a public platform. The only crime of the Presi- 
dent-elect is that he does not subscribe to a policy which 
would perpetuate civil war on the outskirts of our empire, 
and drench every new inch of ground, gained for civiliz ;- 
tion, with the blood of murdered citizens. And as for his 
party, it has not the ascendancy in Congress, nor in the 
Supreme Court of the United States. What hurt could 
it do, even if it wished to do hurt ? Or has it not as much 
right to extend Freedom as other parties have to extend 
Slavery ? But is it not ready to submit to all the demands 
of the Constitution? Or if this displeasure with the Re- 
publican party is a mere pretext, is the South angry be- 
cause she can no longer keep up the abnormal balance be- 

7* 



154 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

tween Slavery and Freedom ? What power can check the 
natural and constitutional growth of the latter ? Are the 
Border States worse off on account of the increase of their 
free population ? No ; this whole question of Freedom 
and Slavery has its warlike features only through political 
interference. Let the policy of the United States in re- 
spect to it be once firmly settled, then an enlightened and 
dispassionate South will no more growl because of the 
fruits of Freedom. It will understand that the very power 
of the United States which it now tries to overthrow, is 
the guardian of its peaceable development. 

V.— PROGNOSTIC OF A SOUTHERN HEXARCHY. 

To secede and to recede are the self-same thing. 
Slavery can no longer continue the struggle against Free- 
dom. It leaves the battle-field, and its arms are hence- 
forth turned no more against the North, but against its 
own self. For secession is a suicidal policy. Where 
is the wealth, where the labor, to build up a separate 
Confederacy ? Where are their bread and their clothes ? 
Who will work in their manufactories? Who will be 
their sailors? White laborers will shun their land. The 
free colored people will flee from fear of being enslaved. 
And what an industrial independence that would be ! 
They have cotton and some minor products to exchange ; 
but woe to a nation that raises but one principal product ! 
It will be Free in nothing, and Slave in everything. Still, 
these things might gradually be changed ; but where and 
who are the men who will make this change under a sep- 
arate empire ? 

We will add a few tables. 



THE CRISIS. 



155 



TABLE XXTIII. POPULATION OF THE TWO CAROLENA8 AND 

OF THE EASTERN GULF STATES W 1850. 
States. Whites. Free Colored. Slaves. Total Colored. Total. 

N.Carolina.. 563,000 27,400 288,500 315.90Q, 869,000 

S.Carolina... 274,500 8,900 384,900 393,800 008,500 

Geore^a 521,500 2,900 381,000 384,500 906,100 

Florida 47,200 900 39,300 40,200 87,400 

Alabama.... 426,500 2,200 342,800 345,000 771,600 

ippi... 295,700 900 300,800 410,700 

Total 2,118,600 43,200 1,746,900 1,790,100 3,908,000 



TABLE XXIX. PROPORTION OF WHITE TO TOTAL POPULA- 





TION. 


(IN 


PEE CENTS.] 


1 






States. 


1790. 


1800. 


1810. 


1320. 


1880. 


1840. 


1S50. 


North Carolina. . 


. . 73.19 


70.65 


67.76 




64.07 


64.36 


63.64 


South Carolina. . 


.. 56.28 


56.79 


51.60 


47.33 




43.59 


41.07 


■Georgia 


. . 64.07 


62.73 


57.60 


55.59 


57.43 


58.97 




Florida 


— 


— 


— 


— 


52.93 


51.29 


53.98 


Alabama 


— 


58.52 


57.00 


66.81 

55.90 


61.52 

51.56 


56.74 
47.67 


55.27 


Mississippi 


18.76 



TABLE XXX. PROPORTION OF FREE COLORED TO TOTAL 

• POPULATION. 



State?. 
North Carolina 
South Carolina. 



1790. 
1.26 
0.72 



Georgia 0.48 

Florida — 

Alabama — 



1S00. 
1.47 
0.92 
0.63 



1810. 
1.85 
1.10 
0.71 



1S20. 
2.29 
1.36 
0.51 



— 0.45 



1S30. 
2.65 
1.36 
48 
2.43 
0.51 



1S40. 

3.01 
1.39 
0.40 
1.50 
0.34 



1 850. 
3.16 

1.34 
0.32 
1.07 
0.29 



Mississippi 



— 2.06 0.59 0.61 0.38 0.36 0.15 



TABLE XXXI. MANUMITTED AND FUGITYE SLAVES IN 1850. 



Stales. Slaves. Manumitted. 

North Carolina 288,500 2 ... 

South Carolina 384,400 2 ... 

Georgia 381,600 19 ... 



Florida . 



39.300 22 



Alabama 342,800 



29 



Mississippi . 



309,800 6 



Fugitives. 

.. 64 

.. 16 

.. 89 

.. 18 

.. 16 

.. 41 



1,746,900 



67 



These tables show that the six States together had, in 
1850, a population about equal in number to that of the 
United States when they were first founded. The inge- 
nious Superintendent of the Census of 1850 makes the 
whole Gulf States a rather dubious compliment when he 



156 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

says, " that while the Atlantic States have increased more 
than threefold since 1790, the Gulf States, which had then 
scarcely any existence, have now a population of nearly 
one half as great as the population of all the States together 
at that time." But that " whole population of all the States 
at that time" was indeed very small, and one half of that 
is scarcely large enough to build up a separate nation. 

The rate of increase, too, is not so very favorable. The 
Gulfj east of the Mississippi, increased, on the whole, only 
6.1 per cent., while the Atlantic Slope increased 54.8 
per cent., and the Mississippi Valley 37.2 per cent. If 
we add to the Gulf States, east of the Mississippi, the two 
Carolinas, the proportions will change but little. For the 
ratio of the decennial increase steadily and rapidly dimin- 
ished in North Carolina from 21.42 per cent, in 1800 to 
15.35 in 1850; and in South Carolina, from 38.75 per cent, 
in 1800 to 12.47 in 1850. Now, should those six States 
even grow at the same ratio as they have done heretofore, 
and the colored people be counted as regular population, 
it would take them at least six times as long as it did the 
Valley of the Mississippi and the Atlantic Slope to grow 
to their number and strength. They would thus reach, in 
about 300 or 400 years, the present power of the United 
States, of which they are now already a part, and whose 
influence, and glory, and position in the world they now 
share as coequal members. To say the least, secession on 
their part is exceedingly impolitic. They would at once 
sink from being a great power in the world to a fourth- 
rate little State, with no voice or influence in the life of 
nations. 

But there is another aspect to these tables. It appears 
that the proportion of the white population in these States 



THE CRISIS. 157 

is continually growing smaller, a phenomenon very differ- 
ent from what was seen in the Border States. 

From the first year of computation to 1850 that propor- 
tion decreased in 

N. Carolina. S. Carolina. Georgia. Florida. Alabama. Mlssisefppi. 

0.5-5 per cent. 15.21 6.51 (incr.) 1.05 11.54. 9.76 

The mean decrease of the proportion of white to total 
population in the six States together is thus 8.43 per cent. 
The proportion of free colored persons to total population 
is also steadily decreasing, except in North Carolina ; nor 
are there any manumissions worth mentioning. The slaves 
will thus be in a majority long before the Confederacy 
reaches any considerable power in the world. And what 
will be the residt of such an increase ? 

The news of a separation from the original republic of 
the United States can not even now be kept a secret from 
the slave population. It has reached them through the 
patriotic speeches of indignant Southerners, through the 
misrepresentations of an enraged party press, through the 
whispers of their free colored brethren. Though they are 
at present but partially informed, they would soon better 
appreciate their position. The United States would be to 
them a second England. No fugitive slave law would 
help the slaveholder of a Southern republic to obtain his 
runaway Negroes from the then foreign soil of the United 
States. Nor would the loss of Negroes be their only 
disadvantage. The slaves would soon awaken to a con- 
sciousness of their power, and break out in open rebellion. 
No United States would then be the guardian of the slave 
power. No United States posse would be found to subdue 
the insurrection. 

And should this be false prophecy, and the Negroes 



158 THE AMERICAN" QUESTION. 

remain peaceable, and increase in number, what will the 
South do with that increased number ? There would be 
no more new territory for the slave power to conquer and 
colonize. The United States, England, and France would 
then go hand in hand, and no Walker would ever again 
dare to think of putting Slavery where formerly Freedom 
was. The world has hitherto appreciated the difficult 
position of the United States, and its committal to Slavery. 
The world has been forced to respect the United States as 
a Great Power, and has feared its strength. The world en- 
dured much from it, in order to avoid collisions detri- 
mental to all. But things would look differently in case 
of a permanent secession. The Great Powers of the 
world, and especially England and the United States, 
would then be united, and jointly watch over the fortunes 
of races and nations. 

But a Southern Confederacy would not so long exist, 
even should it be joined by several more or by all the 
Slave States. Fr. List's words would soon be applicable to 
them : " The debt which so greatly oppresses them is the 
result of a series of excessive exertions to maintain their 
independence, and it is in the nature of things that the 
evil should reach a point where it may be intolerable, 
and when their incorporation into a greater nationality 
would appear as acceptable as it will be necessary.*' 
Troubles from within and troubles from without would 
soon prove to them the fatality of secession. The poeti- 
cal excitement of the first days would soon pass away, 
and prosy misery take its place. Long before a dreaded 
slave insurrection would strike horror into the breast 
of the South and of the whole world — long before the 
Southern republic would wage war against a world in 



THE CRISIS. 159 

arms — parties woxdd arise within their own precincts, and 
the cry of Union, no more fearing to be choked as treason, 
would be again heard from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
borders of Old Virginia, from the Mississippi to the 
mighty oceans ; and the glorious Republic of the United 
States of America would be one again and forever. 

VI.— A NEW PROPOSAL FOR A COMPROMISE. 
Experiments of Disunion with their different contin- 
gencies are costly and unfortunate. They bring distress 
on all sections. It would take years to recover from such 
a violent disrupture of a country — of its industry, of its 
commerce, and of its government. But still, in the end, 
the South would lose the most ; for there is, even in the 
worst case of secession — a secession of all the Slave States 
■ — more wealth and more productive labor, more strength 
and more power to rely upon in the North than in the 
South. 

TABLE XXXII. PROGRESS OF POPULATION. 



SLAVE STATES. 

1790 1,271,500 

1800 1.703,000 

1810 2,208,800 

1820 2,831,600 

1830 3,662,600 

1840 4,634,500 

1850 6,222,400 



FREE STATES. 

1790 1.901,000 

1800 2,601,500 

1810 3,653,200 

1820 5,030,400 

1830 0,874,800 

1840 9,561,200 

1850 13,330,000 



The difference between the numbers of whites in the 
Slave and in the Free States was thus about 700,000 in 
1790. The difference in 1S50 was about 7,000,000, and 
it must be still greater in 1860; for the rate of increase 
of the Slave States was in the last decade 34.26 per cent. ; 
of the Free States 39.42. Thus the whites in the South 
will number, in 1860, about 8,338,000, and those in the 



16 q THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

North about 18,529,500. Moreover, in ease of Disunion, that 
gradual and peaceable pressing down into the Southern 
States would cease ; the North would keep its full num- 
bers and spread on its own soil, and thus increase at a still 
higher ratio, while all emancipation would at once stop, 
and be replaced by violent insurrection. 

We confined ourselves in our last reasonings, about pop- 
ulation to white men ; for in case of Disunion there would 
but little reliance be placed on the colored persons, be it in 
peace or in war. 

But we think so highly of the Union, we are so well 
aware of the advantages accruing from it to the whole 
country and to the world, we feel so keenly the evils 
from Disunion (though it be but partial and momentary), 
that, should our old Constitution not suffice, we would be 
wining, at any time, to submit to a new compromise. 
Nay, further, we would be ready, for the sake of union 
and peace, to yield our whole point respecting Slavery, and 
to look henceforth at the slave, politically, or rather inter- 
nationally, as a mere beast or other property, such as an 
ass or horse is. But, in subscribing thus to the opinions 
of the South, we would ask in return for a rigid adherence 
to this Southern principle in all its logical consequences. 
We would therefore propose the following amendment to 
the Constitution, short, simple, and radical : 

Whereas, The present provisions in the Constitution, as 
far as they refer to slaves, viz., " persons bound to serv- 
ice," have, during an experience of seventy years, proved 
to be inadequate for preventing dissension and violence 
consequent on the question of Slavery in these United 
States ; 

Whereas, Those provisions even now prove insufficient 



THE CRISIS. IQI 

longer to satisfy the Xorth and the South in such manner 
as that they may remain united ; 

Resolved, That, in Art. I., See. 2, ^ 3, beginning thus : 
"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
among the several States which may be included within 
this Union, according to their respective numbers," the 
following words be stricken out, namely : " which shall 
be determined by adding to the whole number of free 
persons, including those bound to service for a term of 
years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all 
other persons." 

Resolved, That, Art. IV., Sec. 2, f 3, reading thus: 
" No person held to service or labor in one State, under 
the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in conse- 
quence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged 
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on 
claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be 
due," be likewise stricken out. 

Resolved, That in lieu of the last-named paragraph 
(namely, Art. IV., Sec. 2, T 3), the following be substi- 
tuted : 

" % 3. Whatever is regarded as property under the laws 
of one State, shall also be regarded as such in all the 
other States." 

This would be in perfect accordance with Mr. Davis' 
resolutions in the Senate Committee of Thirteen. 

"Mr. Davis offered the following resolution, which lies over with 
the others : 

"That it shall he declared by amendment of the Constitution that 
property in slaves, recognized as such by the local law of any of the 
States of the Union, shall stand upon the same footing in all consti- 
tutional and federal relations as any other species of property so 
recognized ; and, like other property, shall not be subject to be 



IQ2 THE AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

divested or impaired by the local law of any other State either in 
escape thereto, or by the transit or sojourn of the owner therein. 
And in no case whatever shall such property be subject to be divested 
or impaired by any legislative act of the United States, or any of the 
territories thereof." 

The Fugitive Slave Law, which is based on Art. IV., 
Sec. 2, 1" 3, would then be invalid. The North would no 
more be called upon to fulfill the unpleasant duty of catch- 
ing fugitive slaves. The owner alone would be responsible 
for all possible losses of horses, asses, or slaves. 

The Southerner, on the other side, might henceforth, 
undisturbed by any Personal Liberty Bill or " erroneous" 
interpretation of the Constitution, go with his property — 
ass, horse, or slave — wherever he chose — to any State or 
Territory, settled or unsettled. But he himself must hence- 
forth take care of his property. If it be stolen or injured, 
he can apply to the proper authorities ; but if it runs away, 
from its own free wish and will, he himself must run after 
it, and catch it, and drive it home again. His neighbors 
may lend him kind assistance if they choose, but they will 
not legally or constitutionally be bound to do it. 

The number of Southern representatives to Congress 
would also be somewhat diminished by carrying out the 
Southern doctrine in all its logical consequences. This 
would be unpleasant ; but there would be no help for it. 
Other deductions might be made from the same principle ; 
but as they would chiefly refer to the internal affairs of 
each State, they are omitted in this general compromise. 

Nor would it be to the disadvantage of the Negro slave ; 
for the chances of freedom would be, by fir, greater for 
him in the Free States than in the Slave States. This po- 
litical nationalization of Slavery would even hasten the 
work of emancipation ; for the influence of the free white 



THE CKISIS. 163 

population would thereby become more direct. Suppose 
the State of New York should in such a way receive some 
10,000 slaves. They would certainly be prepared for 
freedom and become free in a shorter time here than if 
they had remained in South Carolina. 

Nor would this dispersion of -laves over the whole 
national territory add anything to our disgrace, if such it 
be to own slaves. We have the same responsibility, and 
deserve the same epithets, whether our Slavery is in six- 
teen States only or in thirty-four : for we are one common 
nation. The question is only, how we can best secure its 
gradual abolition. 

CONCLUSION. 

So much for compromises. But until it is decided 
whether the original Constitution or the amended one 
shall henceforth be the Supreme Law of the land, the 
proper policy of the United States Government is as 
clear and distinct as its right and duty. 

Whatever the future may bring, peace or war, the 
United States must — 

1. Keep, defend, and in case of treason or defeat, retake, 
at any cost, all national fortifications necessary for the pro- 
tection of all her old boundaries, and for common national 
safety. 

2. She must keep, defend, and, in case of necessity, retake, 
at any cost, the Mississippi from its source to its mouth. 

3. She must, in all other respects, leave the States un- 
disturbed in their internal process of secession, unless they 
attack national property. 

4. She must give the secessionary States time to recover 
from their excitement, and leave to them the same initiatory 



jg^ THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

step in returning to the Union that they assumed in 
seceding from it. 

This must be the present course of action on the part 
of the United States. It follows from the constitutional 
principle of Protection to National Interest and Non- 
Interference toith local Matters, and will probably cover 
all future contingencies. 

Should, however, the present force of the United States 
army, from any reason, be inadequate to the above task, 
there would be enough patriotism left in the land to call, 
at the shortest notice, a million of men to arms, who, 
without distinction of party, would be ready to fight for 
this common country, and rout the rebels, from whatever 
section they might come. 



THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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